Nicole Banowetz: The Intervening Substance

Nicole Banowetz is a Colorado-based sculptor who creates sewn inflatable sculptures inspired by the natural world. She addresses human qualities and relationships using imagery from the animal, plant, mineral, and bacterial worlds. She is also inspired by physical representations of spiritual energy, as seen in this series, which she combines with deep-sea creatures that exist in another mysterious realm, unexplored on Earth. The deepest parts of the ocean contain mysteries similar to space or the afterlife. There we find strange sea creatures, radiolaria, and microbes. These forms appear as though from another world, or out of our own imaginations as they inflate and reveal themselves. Nicole’s fantastical sculptures remind us how much there is to explore and protect in our own environment. 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 showing work in India, Italy, Ireland, Russia, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Taiwan, and England. Banowetz 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 Colorado, The Amsterdam Light festival's Light Art Collection, and Kids Awesome Museum in Taipei, Taiwan. September 3, 2026-December 18, 2026