About the Artist:
Nicole Banowetz is a Denver(USA) based sculptor who makes sewn inflatable sculptures and delicate assembled forms. 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, horses, and rhinos. 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 on the corner. The inflatable is familiar, soft, and comforting giving viewers the security they need to enter a space immerse themselves and become curious. With this curiosity comes a questioning state of mind. My work creates a unique combination of the familiar and the strange which allows viewers to question the world around them. Nicole has lived and worked internationally creating artwork in India, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Poland, and England, and showing work in large international exhibitions such as The Amsterdam Light Festival, Bad Art's Hot Air in London, Open Art in Sweden, and PASSAGES INSOLITES in Quebec City. She has taken part in environmental residencies and exhibitions in California, Colorado, Connecticut, and Finland. Her largest installations to date were shown in the Denver Art Museum, The Famous Hardware store in Arkansas, and Wonderspaces in Arizona and Pennsylvania. She is in the permanent collection of the Denver Children's Museum, Meow Wolf Denver, and the Denver Zoo in the US, The Amsterdam Light festival's Light Art Collection, and Kids Awesome Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.
About the Site:
The Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS) at Yellow Bay is a freshwater research station located on the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. The station conducts scientific research, environmental monitoring and education. FLBS also hosts scientists and engages community members interested in learning about and preserving the freshwater ecosystems of Montana, especially Flathead Lake
The Flathead Lake Biological Station (FLBS) is a Center of Excellence and administrative unit within the University of Montana system. They are an ecological research and education center located on Flathead Lake in the Rocky Mountains near Glacier National Park focusing on freshwater research. For over 100 years, they have conducted college courses, graduate programs, and research focused on the Crown of the Continent ecosystem.
Students and researchers from around the world continue to come to FLBS to learn about ecology and limnology from experts in the field. They conduct year-round novel research to help people live in a healthy, sustainable environment and help policy-makers make informed decisions. FLBS activities help Flathead Lake remain the jewel of Northwest Montana now and for future generations. The Bio Station campus has 60 buildings on 80 shoreline acres.
About Open AIR:
Open AIR is a place-based Artist-in-Residence program that connects artists from all disciplines and origins, with culturally, historically, and ecologically significant locations through collaborative partnerships in Montana.
With innovative opportunities available in places such as remote wilderness areas to historically significant sites closer to town, artists have the opportunity to draw inspiration from a regional community dedicated to preserving place, environment, and the arts.
Show your support at openairmt.org/support