Fransje Killaars (1959)
Transforming a space with colour and textiles to reopen visitors’ minds to their environment. Fransje Killaars’ work intensifies places and viewing experiences. In strong colours and sharp contrasts, she weaves carpets, rugs, pillows, bolsters and bedspreads, the strength of their visuals offset against the sensual softness of the materials used. Her carpets and tapestries are meant to be arranged and adapted; the installations she constructs with them beg to be touched. She dresses floors, beds and windows with tight swaths of organza. Or she strews loosely bunched throw rugs casually over the edge of a cabinet or divan.
Killaars, trained as a painter, began searching for a way to liberate colour from the flat surface. After her training at the Rijksakademie (1979-1984), she worked as an assistant to American artist Sol LeWitt, one of the founders of the conceptual art movement. He inspired her to work with colour within existing architecture. In India, she saw how colour is literally woven into daily life: in clothes, make-up, cloths and rugs used intensively every day. She had found her material. With a bold parade of threads, cloths, materials and rugs, she has been creating engaged, space-filling installations inviting repose since 1995.
