Martina is a textile and mixed media artist currently working with fabrics and fibers, dyed with natural materials such as plants, vegetables and rust.  In this process she endeavour to use ecologically sound ways of dyeing my materials keeping the use of chemicals to a minimum.  This way of working is challenging and rewarding at the same time, as the end result is often unpredictable. As a sort of contradiction to this, she enjoy using commercial embroidery threads, brightly coloured and metallic, to embellish these fabrics and create pieces that are hugely inspired by the natural world around her.

 

her early influences come from home where she learned (with great difficulty) to knit and embroider.  These traditional crafts gave me a love of textiles and laid the foundation for what she does today. 

 

she has completed a number of Fetac courses in creative textiles the most recent being a Special Interest Award in Fine Art Textiles – Fetac Level 8 at CIT Crawford College of Art and Design, Cork