Rona Mirtle

Rona Mirtle is an artist who uses a range of mixed media and textiles to showcase her work!

As an artist, I consider myself a bit of a Splendour Beetle: Fossicking in plant matter, a bit green and taking at least 30 years to emerge!

I work mainly in textiles and mixed media, utilizing where ever possible, offcuts, scraps, recycled clothing and other by-products to create something interesting and thought provoking. Eco and indigo dyeing have appealed to me as a truly alchemical process. I marvel how nature and other invisible variables intervene and thwart attempts to reproduce a piece, despite meticulous planning.

Old newspapers find their way into papier mâché sculptures, op shop clothing gets deconstructed and remade into something else, but it is found objects which bring me most joy and inspiration: scraps of cloth found at the roadside, bits of wool stuck on fences, small bones, rusty tools, seaweed, which tell stories of a past existence. Sometimes I sew pieces of cloth together to make a wrap or garment. Other times I print, wax, sew and collage these fragments to tell an alternative story. The narrative is endless.