Nicole in her sculpture Vessel. Created in Russia as part of a residency with the National Contemporary Center for the Arts. This photo was taken in Berlin by Michael Wickham as a part of his 40 Berliners Series.
Nicole Anona Banowetz
Born 1981 Fort Collins, CO USA
Nicole Banowetz is a Colorado sculptor who makes sewn inflatable sculptures. Nicole’s work is inspired by the natural world. She addresses human qualities and relationships using the imagery she finds in the animal, plant, mineral, and bacterial worlds. She has made made installations inspired by bacteria, parasitic fungus, viruses, radiolaria, rotifers, rhinos, etc... All these forms she recreates in soft inflatable sculptures, which she designs and sews on her sewing machine. Inflatables have power. They draw an audience in by promising the familiarity of childhood, a jumping castle, and the wacky waving man. The inflatable is familiar, soft, and comforting which gives viewers the security they need to enter a space, immerse themselves, and become curious. With curiosity comes a questioning state of mind. Nicole's work creates a unique combination of the familiar and the strange which allows viewers to question the world around them.
Nicole Banowetz works professionally as an artist in sculpture, design, installation, and education. She graduated from Colorado State University in 2004 with a BFA in sculpture. She has also lived and worked internationally creating and / or showing work in India, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Taiwan, and England. Nicole has shown in the Biennial of the Americas, The Museum of Outdoor Arts, the Arvada Center, Ironton Gallery, OpenART, Pirate Contemporary, Gray Contemporary, Saginaw Valley State University Art Gallery, and the Kreuzburg Pavilion. She is in the permanent collection of the Denver Children's Museum and the Denver Zoo in the US, The Amsterdam Light festival's Light Art Collection, and Kids Awesome Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.
Nicole has completed residencies at the Center for Creative Activities in Ustka, Poland a part of the Baltic Gallery of Contemporary Art‘s artist in residency program, the NCCA Art Residence in Kronstadt in Russia, and in Berlin the GlogauAIR artist in residency program and the Institut für Alles Mögliche residency program. She also participated in the Denver Children's Museum residency program, making a large inflatable series of sculptures inspired by childrens' drawings of microscopic creatures. She recently completed large inflatable light installations for both the 2016 and 2017 editions of the Amsterdam Light festival, and showed in the OpenArt biennial in Orebro in 2017. Nicole completed the AARK Archipelago Art Residency in Korpo Finland and created a new work for the the Environmental Art Exhibition Barfotastigen (Barefoot Path. She was also in residence with Breckcreate in Breckenridge in preparation for her work in the Breckenridge International Festival of the Arts. Her most detailed installation to date, The Incubation Effect was displayed at the Denver Art Museum in 2018-2019.