“These look like something out of a fairytale.” That’s the first thing I heard as I walked into the intimate confines of the Gordon Parks Gallery last week to see “Voyage,” Alonso Sierralta’s new sculpture exhibition. I’ve admired his work for years, but puzzled over it, too. His pieces exude an innate otherworldliness,  an almost-of-this-world plausibility, betrayed by an out-of-place detail here, maybe an odd juxtaposition of shape or materials there. His sculptures are evocative of organically occurring forms, but upon close examination, they are plainly fabricated, too, bearing clear evidence of their maker’s hand — chimerical blends of organic and synthetic.

In the gallery, there’s a small selection of Sierralta’s pieces, a mix of old and new work. Here, in the entry of the show, there’s a haunch of some kind, but from a beast I can’t begin to imagine: whose muscular lines are shaped with basket-weaving, tapering to wooden shins and hooves, which themselves are made of resin. Over in the opposite corner of the gallery, a lumpy bracket mushroom is removed from its expected context, but still weirdly at home fixed to the clean, polished lines of its riveted copper basin. Next to it, a series of surfboard-shaped amalgamations of smooth-polished, ivory river stones are mounted to the wall, a row of totems — but look a little closer, and they’re not individual stones at all, but rather a single unit, a thin cast from a plaster mold and endlessly repeatable. On the floor are larger works, elegant and curvaceous motherships, one of them releasing small, clear plastic pods.

When asked, the Chilean-born artist situates his work within a personal immigration narrative, describing his pieces’ various spores, shoots, seedpods, as metaphors for transplantation; and his sculptures do call to mind the sheer tenacity and grow-anywhere grit of those who, by circumstance or choice, make their lives far from home. But the slightly off-kilter, neither-this-nor-that footing I sense in his work tells me the transplantation’s not always tidy or easy.

“Voyage” is an exhibition of 11 sculptures by Alonso Sierralta, curated by William G. Franklin, and will be on view through March 2 in Metropolitan State University’s Gordon Parks Gallery. In addition to the exhibit, Sierralta will deliver a side lecture in the Ecolab Community Room (which is located adjacent to the gallery) on Tuesday Thursday, Feb. 9 from 7 to 8 p.m., where he will discuss his sculptural practice. At this time there will also be a screening of the short film made by Franklin regarding Sierralta’s work. Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Friday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is located on the third floor of the university’s Library and Learning Center, 645 E. Seventh St., St. Paul, Minn.