With humour and irreverence, Hendry deflates the glossy perfection of Koons’s icons to ask: What happens when form fails?
This spring, artist Cj Hendry returns with Keff Joons, an exhibition that reimagines the balloon—not as decoration or child’s toy, but as a curious study in form, tension, and collapse. Drawing inspiration from Jeff Koons and his glossy balloon menagerie, Hendry offers her own irreverent take: lopsided knots, misshapen curves, and the barely-inflated absurd.
Installation view
Image courtesy of the artist
“Balloons are so simple, yet they carry this enormous emotional weight—joy, nostalgia, fragility,” Hendry said. “I love that they float so effortlessly, but at any moment, they can pop. Keff Joons is my tongue-in-cheek nod at that balance between lightness and impermanence through the lens of Jeff Koons’ incredible balloon sculptures. While Jeff has transformed the balloon animal into an icon of art, I’ve cobbled together these balloon ‘knots’ that forgo structure and form and are totally ridiculous. I’m leaving the real art to the professionals!”
Hendry, born in Brisbane in 1988 and now based in New York, has built a career turning the ordinary into the obsessive. Known for her large-scale, painstakingly detailed drawings, she has more recently shifted toward immersive experiences—inviting visitors not only to look, but to enter, explore, and play. Her exhibitions are not confined to walls; they spill into the space, transforming rooms into dreamscapes and playgrounds.
Image courtesy of the artist
In Epilogue (2023), an old Georgian church was filled with white petals that drifted from the ceiling for ten days straight. At Public Pool (2024), visitors made the journey deep into the Nevada desert, where they were met by a full-sized swimming pool and the unexpected stillness of an impossible oasis. Then came Flower Market (2024), a collaboration with beauty brand Clé de Peau Beauté, in which Hendry constructed a 120-foot by 40-foot greenhouse on the lawn of FDR Four Freedoms State Park. Inside, 100,000 meticulously crafted plush flowers paid tribute to the natural radiance and botanicals found in Clé de Peau Beauté’s products.
What binds Hendry’s work is not just scale or spectacle, but her instinct for contradiction. Her objects are often light in subject but heavy in execution. Her shows brim with charm, but linger with more complicated feelings—memory, loss, desire.
Image courtesy of the artist
Crowds follow her wherever she goes. From Melbourne to Miami, lines stretch around the block. Inside the art world, her work circulates quickly among collectors and celebrities; a waiting list for her pieces now runs into the thousands, with some buyers waiting years.
In Keff Joons, Hendry continues her quiet rebellion against the polished and the precious. Her balloons don’t gleam—they flop, bend, and threaten to burst. And in doing so, they offer something Koons never quite did: a laugh, a shrug, and the freedom to let the air out.
50 massive, interactive sculptures fill the space — bold, playful, and impossible to ignore — anchored by a singular, original centerpiece sculpture.
Available for purchase:
● 8 original medium drawings (now sold out)
● 1 original large drawing (now sold out)
● 1 sculpture (now sold out)
● 10 limited editions (100 of each)
● A cheeky collection of merch, including t-shirts, baseball caps, balloon packs with pumps, enamel pins, magnets, coloring books, and silk scarves
Cj Hendry: Keff Joons runs from April 11 to April 20, 2025, at 50 Gold St, Brooklyn (DUMBO), New York.
©2025 Cj Hendry
Len is a curator and a contributing writer at Art Plugged, a platform for contemporary art; he also engages in web development, design, and marketing.
