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All around Australia, Patricia Piccinini has been approached by people who are rolling up a sleeve, tugging at a trouser leg, or even lifting their T-shirt. They’re revealing their tattoos of the Skywhales, hot air balloon creatures Piccinini dreamed up more than a decade ago when imagining what whales might look like if they’d evolved to live in the air.
“There are lots of great Skywhale tattoos. I love them,” says Piccinini, who has become one of Australia’s most renowned artists with her lifelike sculptures of fantastical animals. “For the Skywhales to become part of someone’s narrative … It’s a real gift to me.”
These tattooed fans are among the thousands of people Piccinini has met since 2013, when the first Skywhale took to the air, her 10 long breasts dangling from the sky. In 2021, she was joined by her partner, Skywhalepapa, who carries their brood of babies around the country. Last year alone, the Skywhales Across Australia tour organised by the National Gallery of Australia visited six sites, from Townsville in tropical north Queensland to Albany on the blustery south-west WA coast. In 2026, the Skywhales are taking to the skies in four new locations, starting at the New England Regional Art Museum in Armidale, northern New South Wales, on 21 March.
The Skywhales divide opinion, but these bulbous yet majestic beings have won the hearts of many. Often, people are so excited about the creatures visiting their community that they add their own touches to the event. In Canberra and Ballarat, local choirs performed We Are the Skywhales – a song composed by musician Jess Green – as the balloons took flight. In Alice Springs, GUTS Dance choreographed moves for the crowd to perform in celebration of the animals.
Admirers have also reimagined the Skywhales in other forms. Piccinini has seen Skywhale-inspired outfits, hats and jewellery, and Canberra knitter Katy Griffis has developed a pattern to recreate the creatures in wool. Last year, when Piccinini arrived at the Caloundra Regional Gallery on the Sunshine Coast, she was greeted by dozens of cuddly Skywhales made by the Happy Yarners, a local knitting group. Two of those toys now live on a shelf in Piccinini’s studio, a reminder of people’s affection for her creation.
“The Skywhales were part of someone’s wedding vows: ‘I promise to take you to events like the Skywhales,’” she says, her eyes wide with delight. “They become part of people’s identity.”
Piccinini thinks the Skywhales evoke such strong feelings because they provide a chance to experience “collective effervescence,” a term coined by the sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe the intense emotions and sense of connection that emerges when people gather for a shared purpose, like a concert or sports match. The wonder felt by a crowd watching these behemoths take flight, often just as dawn breaks, creates a sense of “we belong together,” she says.
While the Skywhales have flown in some of Australia’s most scenic spots, Piccinini believes it is the act of gathering that makes the experience special, rather than a specific site. In fact, a less spectacular setting can have its own benefits. “Sometimes art can be intimidating,” she says. “But if it’s at a sports ground, people come feeling comfortable and open. They’re not thinking, ‘Should I be here? Do I have to pay?’ They know they can come in – and by the way, it’s all free.”
When Piccinini first created the Skywhale, she was inspired by the unlikely evolution of whales from hoofed animals on land to leviathans in the ocean. The balloons still prompt reflection on the miracles of natural selection, and the fact the Skywhales are a family also triggers reflections on relationships, nurturing and care.
But technology has advanced so far since the project started that it is now possible to see them as products of a lab, rather than of Darwinism. With scientists close to “de-extincting” the thylacine and the dodo, the Skywhales could be an omen – good or bad – of the animals we might soon have the God-like power to create.
