The Cloud, Permament Public Art Installation at the Beijing Vanke times Center in China
2018
The Cloud, Permament Public Art Installation at the Beijing Vanke times Center in China
2018
Hearbeat at Covent Garden, London
2015
Hearbeat at Covent Garden, London
2015
Using white ballons, Pétillon creates large-scale installations that are hauntingly beautiful. While the balloons call to mind a childlike humor and innocence, they are also somewhat threatening, which is highlighted by the name of his series titled: Invasions. For Pétillon “These balloon invasions are metaphors. Their goal is to change the way in which we see the things we live alongside each day without really noticing them. It is our way of looking at things that I am trying to transform and revive, and therefore make it possible to go beyond practical perception to aesthetic experience.”
In 2015 in London at Covent Garden, Heartbeat was Pétillon’s first public installation. The white balloons were lit by pulsating lights, embodying the “heart” of the city in London’s historic marketplace, Covent Garden. Heartbeat includes 100,000 balloons and the overall size of the piece was 177 x 39.4 ft.
In 2018, UAP collaborated with Charles Pétillon to adapt his temporary art practice into a permanent public art installation for the new commercial mixed-use development Beijing Vanke Times Center in China. Comprised of nearly 100 hand-finished aluminium spheres of different sizes, the installation titled "The Cloud" is a direct reference to Pétillon’s earlier works and is a dramatic arrival statement suspended within the entrance atrium. Petillon’s white balloon piece for Vanke Times Center endows the atrium with a whimsical overhead wonder and adds a theatrical quality to the space.
