Sherry Saele Kollar is a sculptural fibre artist based out of Victoria, BC. She received her BFA from the Oregon College of Art and Craft and was awarded first place in Future Tense 2018, the Surface Design Association’s annual international juried student show. Her work uses colour and material experimentation to explore the juxtaposition between playfulness and protection. Sherry has exhibited in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California and Missouri.
Whether self-imposed or mandated, we employ many forms of protection to keep ourselves both mentally and physically safe. We even extend the act of safekeeping to our cherished belongings, protecting them by wrapping them up instead of using and enjoying them. By pairing tactile, natural fibers with high visibility industrial flagging tape, this series of woven pieces explores the ways in which our instinctive desire to protect and ‘keep safe’ interacts with, and sometimes overtakes, our equally important need for freedom, enjoyment and authentic experience. The impossible-to-ignore beacon of flagging tape’s neon color stands as a universal signal of danger, its very function is to alert, divert, deter or warn. The soft and sensual ropes of wool roving evokes an emotional invitation of welcoming as well as a spirit of reckless abandon. Weaving these two dichotomous materials results in physically and conceptually constricting, restricting, and inhibiting an unruly freedom, attempting to fully freeze all movement but unable to fully overpower it.
