SELLOTEL: The Sellotape Sculptor
From a life-sized BMX to immaculate Nike Air Max trainers, artist Terry Metrovic creates nostalgic pieces entirely out of sellotape
Staring wide-eyed with a face caught between the emotions of confusion, bewilderment, surprise and inspiration, I was delighted to discover a very different type of artistic expression.
A life-size BMX, with tyres, spokes, moving pedals, chain, the whole shabang, is being photographed - and it’s made entirely out of sellotape.
How? Why? How?
“I like to make things with moving parts,” says artist Terry Metrovic (@terrymetrovich). “Because it is very rare that something made out of only one material has moving parts. Especially out of sellotape.”
Affectionately known as SelloTel, the Teynham resident started making sellotape men aged 10 before giving up his unique hobby during his teens.
Now in his late 30s, Tel rediscovered his skills with sticky tape when a friend challenged him to create a pair of stiletto shoes.
“I hadn’t done anything for years,” he says, like a boxer prepping for a big comeback. “I didn’t know if I could still do it. This time round I attacked it a bit differently, as you tend to do when not 10 anymore.
“This time I could use things like scalpel blades and soldering irons. And building it a bit differently meant it came out better than I thought it would. So I thought I would see how far I could push it.”
“I’ve always wanted to build a full-size Volkswagen Campervan - entirely out of sellotape”
The life-size guitar is next to be photographed from the treasure trove of sello-wonders, complete with full-length fingerboard, pick guard and structured sound hole.
“I get very disappointed if I can’t put a detail onto something,” says Tel. “For example, with the guitar strings, I make them individually so they can be loosened and tightened on the keys.
“I wanted to make the different pieces and assemble it as if it was the real thing. And the more you make it individually, the more realistic it looks. If the strings were just stuck on, it just wouldn’t look realistic.”
Catching the eye is the pair of Nike Air Max trainers, which are vintage, quite literally - he made them more than a decade ago. The detail is ridiculous, with laces and loopholes and even grip-tread on the sole of the shoe gouged out with a soldering iron.
But his favourite piece was arguably the most difficult to construct.
“It is probably the BMX,” says Tel, who demonstrates the moving pedals, the individually created and connected segments of chain and even the spokes in the wheel.
“The secret is all about creating the flat sheets and then the details afterwards. Lay down the sellotape and fold it over on itself to create a sheet that’s rigid. Keep layering and then begin to cut shapes.
“Trial and error, that’s all it is. When somebody asks me to make something, I already start planning in my head how I’m going to create it. Every time I make a new model, I come up with a new technique to create some part of it.”
All of these items are sturdy. They aren’t going to fall apart if you pick them up.
“I try to vary what I make so I can come up with different ideas and strategies of creating a bit of structure,” he explains. “But it is all 100% sellotape. People think I use other things. Like they think I’ve used a wooden frame for structure. But no. There are limits, of course, but I try to push them as far as I can.”
It’s a mantra that Tel sticks by, having created a novelty-size Dr Who Tardis, a Star Wars Darth Vader mask and a moving, tipping Tonka Truck - the must-have toy for children in the 80s and 90s.
“I was looking for inspiration and saw a concertina fan and made that, with all the working parts,” he explains. And then a chess board because I was playing a lot of chess against a friend. So inspiration has come from things around me.”
But Tel’s dream creation is on a much bigger scale.
“I’ve always wanted to build a full-size Volkswagen camper van entirely out of sellotape. I’ve been thinking about the structure and reckon I could do it.”
PR opportunity there for anyone at Volkswagen if you’re reading this…
Having such a niche artistic expression has also meant that Tel has developed some niche, but ultimately invaluable, skills.
For example, he knows which brands provide ‘good’ and bad’ sellotape.
“There’s a lot of tape out there that is crap,” he says, three-metre, industrial-sized sellotape in hand.
“I don’t know about being an expert, but I can tell a good one from a bad one. People say ‘Oh, just buy the cheap stuff’, but it’s not the same.”
Between you and me, a lot of this comes down to how the sellotape breaks, whether it’s horizontally (good) or vertically (bad).
He has also developed the knowledge that haunts people’s Christmases year in, year out - how to never lose the end of the sticky tape in between uses.
He shows us. But like magicians in the magic circle, we can’t pass on the information.
You will have to ask him yourself.
