Floating On A Dream

2020

6 x 16.5 x 8 in

One of my favorite artists and one I look up to is Banksy. His art style, how he executes his pieces, and his overall mysteriousness all fascinate me and for one of my projects for school, I wanted to put a twist on one of his most famous works, Balloon Girl.

As it is required in the curriculum for us to work with various mediums, I decided to make a sculpture for this one. Its obvious that I took inspiration from Balloon Girl because of the red heart-shaped balloon and the black and white girl with her hand reaching out. But instead of the girl reaching the for the balloon, I wanted it to look like the girl was reaching out to something else and instead is riding the balloon.

In the original work, the balloon represents our desires such as our hopes and dreams. This led to the double meaning of the title I gave my work as the girl is both literally and figuratively "floating on a dream". I wanted the message of the sculpture to be that we can use our dreams to help guide us to our destinies.

An interesting part to this piece is how the balloon appears to be floating. Realistically, if I were to use a real helium balloon, it wouldn't support the weight of the girl and also it would stop floating and lose its helium after a period of time. This is when I thought to make the balloon paper mache as it would make the balloon sturdy enough to support the girl while also being hollow and light enough to be supported by the wiring.

I also wanted to add a rustic/urban feel to the work so the base that holds the wiring is made out of plaster of Paris and resembles the concrete wall which the original piece by Banksy was first painted. Then to make the wiring look like the string attached to the balloon, I wrapped a thin layer of clay around it and painted it black. I also added an extra piece of clay at the bottom to make the sting look longer.

Balloon Girl by Banksy

The first challenge I faced was figuring out how to make the girl in the original painting 3D. The balloon was easy to replicate as I just needed a heart shaped balloon but with the girl it was a lot more complicated.

Secondly, I made the girl kneel down instead of stand up as it provides a larger surface area for the girl to rest on the balloon.

Then since I was making the girl 3D, I needed more than just a side view to make her model. So I searched up if anyone else has made sculptures based on the painting and luckily there were. I used those images as a reference when sculpting the girl.

Fourth, as the girl need to rest on top of the balloon, she had to be light enough so that she doesn't tip over the sculpture. So I found an air-dry clay that has a similar texture and composition as crafting foam when it dries. The clay is also compatible with acrylic paint.

Lastly, I needed to figure out a way to make the girl look like she is from the painting. So I painted her exactly like she is seen in the painting, with majority of her body covered in black and the highlights stay as white.

Alternate concept of how the girl would sit on the balloon

In the image above, you can see how I structured the wire to hold the balloon and also create a base where it would sit. I bent a long piece of wire in half to add extra strength then I molded one end of the wire to go along the edge of half of the balloon and secured it in place with masking tape. It then goes down into where the air would be pumped in and straightened to make the interior of the "string". The excess wire is then bent into a circle at the end so that when it is put into the plaster of Paris, it would be stable enough to hold its own weight.

Another problem I encountered was that I originally used rubber balloons for the paper mache. This was problematic because when I would add the wire and paper mache, it would pop easily. That is when I decided to resort to using foil balloons as they retain air longer, are more sturdy, and do not pop easily.