*1959 NO, Stavanger
Sissel Tolaas is a contemporary Norwegian installation artist most widely known for her work with odours.Born in 1959 in Stavanger, Norway, Tolaas was educated at the West Norway Art Academy in Bergen (now part of the KHiB), as well as art academies in Poznan, Warsaw, and Oslo. She has lived and worked in Berlin since 1986.During the 1990s, her work began to focus exclusively on odours. She maintains a "smell archive" in over 7000 airtight jars.From her artist's statement about the installation the FEAR of smell — the smell of FEAR at the 2005 Tirana Biennale, Tolaas explains: