When I was a kid, I loved balloon animals and was always sad when the colourful, inflatable creatures I bought home from shows and circuses slowly deflated. I think Jason Hackenwerth may have had a similar passion, which he has transformed into a peculiar form of art-making: balloon sculpture. Drawing inspiration from nature, Hackenwerth brings strange animals and bizarre landscapes to life through the twisting and turning of hundreds and thousands of balloons. Reminiscent of millipedes, of crustaceans, of deep sea fishes and waterborne plants, his giant works make the microscopic macroscopic. Rendered larger-than-life but yet unnaturally airborne they are brilliantly surreal, capturing the transcendentalism of both air and of nature itself.

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