Inspiration Nation

Balloonatics

Welcome to Inspiration Nation, the world’s premier source for arts criticism, awareness, appreciation, and analysis. That’s right—all that, right here, no paywall, and no degree required. Read on for some serious culture. 

Alert: it’s been brought to our attention that we’ve been fully ignorant of an important medium! You may have read our other columns where we expounded knowledgeably upon classical art forms such as painting, drawing, and sculpting and wondered Why won’t they get to the good stuff? Where is the goddamn balloon art? This is no excuse, but it’s an apology: reader, we simply did not know.

Via frenzied study, we brought ourselves up to speed on the basics and are now thrilled to present a master of the form, Masayoshi Matsumoto. Matsumoto creates deeply detailed balloon animals. This isn’t the weiner dog from the clown at your fifth birthday party (shudder). Just look: 

Much of the charm of children’s animated movies is the seemingly scary or repulsive creatures who are defanged, portrayed as cute and lovable (Antz, Ratatouille, James and the Giant Peach, etc.). For the most part, Matsumoto’s balloon animals follow this principle, delighting us with their gestural limbs and latex smiles. But things take a turn towards the grotesque once we leave the mammals behind, and where the medium truly shines is in Matsumoto’s more coldblooded creations; insects with exoskeletons, squatting reptiles, and even larvae. There’s something about the visceral gleam of a bulging balloon thorax that both repels and attracts a squeamish viewer.

Many balloon art practitioners generously share how-tos online. We highly recommend checking out this subculture of ‘twisters’ (apparently what they call themselves, according to a few YouTube comments we skimmed). The squeaking of the balloons made us want to die so we watch on mute, but it’s worth it. It will deeply heighten your appreciation of the sheer craftsmanship and vision required to make instant-classics like the penguin, the cockroach, and our fave…the worm.

Please let us know if you’d like us to remove any images; we do our best to source and credit properly but in this fast-living, fast-paced world of publishing, mistakes are sometimes made