BALLOON SCULPTOR COMBINING ART AND SCIENCE - Willy Chyr and his balloon art

Willy Chyr is a Torontonian who has quite an unusual career path given his educational background. Chyr has a B.A. degree in Physics and Economics from the University of Chicago and had been partway working his way through a PhD in Physics. Chyr, however, decided to become a balloon artist. It turns it wasn't a bad choice as he has gained quite a reputation as an artist. Over the past year, Chyr's sculptures have been featured in magazines and museum exhibitions around the world. He even had a spread in Elle magazine.

Before university, Chyr would never have dreamt of pursuing a career in art. However, it was only after first year when he joined Le Vorris & Vox Circus (in a very unexpected move) that the gears started moving. There, he learned how to juggle, unicycle, perform magic tricks, and most importantly, twist balloons. Then, in his last year of university, he and a group of students were looking for a school grant and decided on an electronic based project of making balloon sculptures based on bio-luminescent creatures with lights embedded throughout. Their project caught the attention of the Museum of Science and Industry and Chyr continued to create balloons on the side and even went to study in an arts school.

Chyr's work has been described as "exploring the intersection between art and science". In many of his works, he has taken inspiration from his old textbooks and created balloon sculptures based off of genetic molecules and neuron pathways.

Recently, Chyr has caught the attention of the world's largest brewer and they have announced that their new bottle labels will feature one of Chyr's designs (he calls it, A Glimpse of Something Ephemeral). It will be one of six other creative projects by various individuals that is aimed to celebrate independent thinking.