Patricia Piccinini - The Young Family 2003 photograph found on Brooklyn Museum

Patricia Piccinini's work is usually bizarre and unsettling, but never really scary.

The creatures she creates somehow strike a nerve. They mesmerize me and i can't stop looking at them, while at the same time my belly starts to ache a little bit and i notice a growing unease within myself without being able to pinpoint the exact source of it.

Well, now the Australia-based artist created a hot air balloon.

?

Yep.
Nothing wrong with your reading skills, i indeed mean one of those gigantic balloons floating in the air.

And there she is, the Skywhale:

Photographs courtesy of Patricia Piccinini

Isn't she lovely? (and Bizarre)

The Skywhale was commissioned to celebrate the centenary of Canberra, and comes complete with her own website and twitter-account where i also found this lovely little video:



More creatures to be found on Patricia Piccinini's website, as well as current and upcoming exhibitions
(the closest one being in Wallsall, England -near Birmingham-  'the Nature of the Beast exhibition' in the New Art Gallery runs until June 30th).

Spotted on Designboom, by the way

Do you like the work of Patricia Piccinini?
You might also be charmed by the fishy creatures of Dutch artist Peter Zwaan which i wrote about on this blog last year.

Happy new week!