Plastic Nature: the contemporary painting series that began in a New York museum 🎈

There's an image I haven't been able to get out of my head for years. A balloon animal floating in the middle of a real jungle. So out of place. So perfectly in place. 🌿

The origin: a museum, a display case, and a question 🏛️

In 1889, Carl Akeley created the first natural history dioramas for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. These three-dimensional scenes depicted animals in their habitats: hand-painted backgrounds, realistic vegetation, and simulated depth. All of this was designed to give the feeling of looking through a window into another world.

The Plastic Nature series was born from the same question Akeley asked herself: how to represent an ecosystem. Only the answer is different. Instead of taxidermied animals, helium animals 🎈. Instead of preserved nature, plastic.

If someone were to make a diorama today (an honest one), what would they put inside?

Serie Naturaleza Plástica ©2026. Pintura contemporánea. Sofía Cristina Jiménez.

What you see in each work 🖼️

Naturaleza Plástica has been active since 2021. It consists of more than 20 large-format acrylic works on Belgian linen.

What you see in each painting is this: animals depicted as helium balloons, with all their reflections, their shine, their synthetic volume... inhabiting a natural environment painted with all the realism I am capable of giving it. The background is detailed, saturated, believable:

■ Tropical rainforest with dense vegetation and filtered light

■ Lagoon with reflections of water and sky

■ Coral reef with deep sea

■ Open steppe under a horizontal light

And against that background: a pink plastic flamingo 🦩 . An inflated tiger among the vegetation 🐯 . A metallic polar bear facing the Arctic sea 🐻❄️ .

Some works feature a composition of several animals; two or three species sharing the same habitat, with their spatial hierarchies and dynamics. Others feature a single animal as the absolute protagonist: it and its ecosystem, nothing more.

In both cases, the contrast works the same way: the setting demands you believe it, the animal reminds you it's a balloon, and something in between—between tenderness and realism—is where the series lives. 💫

(Some works are done differently, with the linen visible instead of a painted background. I discuss this in another post, as it's a decision that deserves its own discussion.)

Many of the works have been the inspiration for other series and concepts such as the Ascendants and Descendants series and Nobody puts baby in a corner:

The balloon giraffe and the flag

Mako the reef shark , of which there are two, one in the home of a private collector and gold in the Royal Caribbean collection.

Napoleon, the balloon panda bear who was the inspiration for Baby Panda, and was the first bear, then came Blu the polar bear.

Otto, the balloon koala in his tree in grays and greens on uncovered linen.

Truthi, the ostrich in the steppe , which has been the work that has inspired Lady Truthi I and Lady Truthi II and Baby ostrich, from the series Nobody puts baby in a corner.

Or the flamingos , which inspired the flamenco and lagoon , and Sir Rubber.

Diorama: the work that turns the canvas into a display case 🔲

Within the family there is a separate work: Diorama.

The square format simulates a box. A painted brass railing separates the viewer from the scene—as in a museum—and inside: four helium animals at different depths, among trees, with a jungle background that generates the same illusion of perspective that Akeley used.

Where he placed real taxidermied animals, I place plastic. The question the work poses is which of the two legacies is more honest about the moment in which it was created.

Diorama won the Carta Puebla Prize at the Miguelturra 2025 Plastic Arts Competition.

Where the series lives : Plastic Nature✨

Visitors admire a vibrant painting of an ostrich at the Art Madrid Art Fair, showcasing a blend of creativity and nature.

Plastic Nature has traveled quite a bit:

□ Art Madrid · JustMad · ART3F Paris

□ Permanent collection, Cromática Museum, Toledo

□ Royal Caribbean International Collection, Star of the Seas 🚢

And it keeps growing. Each new work is a different animal, a different ecosystem, the same problem not quite solved.

Plastic shouldn't be the only animal inhabiting our lagoons.

If you'd like to see the complete series or receive the catalog with availability and prices, please contact me directly. 🎨 →View the Plastic Nature series

If you prefer to explore other series derived from Plastic Nature → See the Small Format Works series

And if you came here looking for contemporary art featuring animals, there's more to what makes an animal painting more than just decoration.

→ Contemporary animal art: when the animal is the subject, not the motif

A vibrant artwork by Sofia Cristina Jimenez featuring a bright green crocodile relief with colorful spikes, set against a striking blue backdrop, held up against a plain white wall.

♡♡♡

---

© Copyright protected content. 2025 The Permanent Space · Sofía Cristina Jiménez. All rights reserved. Total or partial reproduction of this content is prohibited without express authorization. The images and texts on this blog are the property of The Permanent Space.

plastic nature contemporary painting series

[ Meet the artist ] [ View large format works ] [ View unique small works ] [ Return to Home]