THE
SUNPOST
Autumn 2016
31
Meet contemporary textile artist – Mirjam Aigner The development of her art form as a contemporary textile artist, has been a life journey for Mirjam Aigner who has put her roots down on a small acreage outside of Jindabyne where the rolling hills inspire her creativity. Growing up in Haarlem, 25km northwest of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Mirjam Aigner’s journey of creativity began when she attended a Steiner school. For her art had always been part of her environment with her parents being acquainted with well known Dutch artists. Mirjam migrated to New Zealand where she met and married her Australian husband. In 1976, she joined her husband in Adelaide. They then moved to Sydney where she obtained a degree in languages through distance education with the University of New England. This led her to teaching French and German in the 1990s. During the ‘80s, Mirjam had the opportunity to study wool classifying, design, weaving and spinning two days a week at Strathfield TAFE. Her first foray into quilting began with traditional quilting techniques and finally after moving to Jindabyne in 2003, her dormant artistic nature blossomed and she became interested in experimental techniques with fabric. In 2010 she had the opportunity to attend a five-day course in Ballarat, conducted by a visiting American, Joan Schulz teaching contemporary techniques. This was followed by a trip by Mirjam to Seattle in America, to confirm the skills she had acquired by attending Joan’s very last course. To construct a quilt Mirjam uses white natural fibre fabric which could be cotton or silk organza on to which she mono prints and enhances the design with screen or thermofax prints and then whilst searching for connection she may print over it or diminish it by overlaying or super imposing silk organza either printed or coloured, thus creating a complex multi layered art piece on the cloth. Her colours are obtained through ink paste and, or dyes whose hues are created from commercially prepared primary colours. Indeed, it was very rewarding for Mirjam when her two art quilt pieces were submitted in 2012 and accepted for the exhibition “Regeneration” at Manly Art Gallery where the ‘crème de la crème’ of Australia’ are hung. Recently Mirjam worked an extraordinary quilt depicting the World War I Snowy River March from Delegate in 1915. This was inspired
by the research by Rosemary Stewart Beardsley and Greta Jones for their “Bringing Them Home” photographic exhibition together with stories of some of the soldiers displayed in the Snowy River Information Centre in 2015 when the quilt was also on show. The principal colours of the quilt are green and gold, with red symbolizing anxiety and fear. Orange is used to portray “mud, mud and more mud”. The script from a digger’s diary, forms the top and bottom of the quilt, which measures 2 ½ metres by 1.1 metres. The journey of the march of soldiers from Delegate to Goulburn and onwards to Hobart for embarkation and then to the war front, is told through the use of thermo fax printed copies of photos and posters. Then there are letters from France to a mother, images of nurses, the fighting and the home coming. For Mirjam, the compilation of the quilt was a very emotional process as she placed herself in the shoes of the young men going away and coming home quite broken, and reflecting on the consequences of war in her native Netherlands. On March 8th on International Women’s Day, Mirjam will hand over the quilt to the Delegate History Museum. Mirjam was thrilled when one of her quilts was accepted this year for a year-long travelling display of contemporary quilts titled “A Matter of Time” curated by Brenda Gael Smith who is based at Copacabana on the NSW central coast. The competition was promoted world wide and 109 pieces were entered from 13 countries, of these 32 pieces including Mirjam’s, were selected. The quilt exhibition will be on show in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. Venues in Queanbeyan and New Zealand are still to be confirmed and the exhibition could go further afield. The selection criteria for inclusion in the exhibition included that the quilt had to be a contemporary textile piece of three layers in order to comply with the requirements. The quilt preparation became “a matter of time”, going on a journey and putting together diverse textile experiences of various disciplines. The curator assessed submissions on the artistic ability,
traditional quilting methods, excellence of worksmanship, originality and technicality. Whilst currently producing contemporary fabric designs for Melbourne fashion designer Jody Kahlon of Melbourne, Mirjam Aigner is keen to share her talents and run small workshops exploring textile creativity at weekend courses for four to five students at very affordable prices. If you are interested in participating, then she can be contacted at mirjam. aigner2@bigpond.com or by phoning her on 0424 406 315. More about Mirjam’s work can be seen by ‘googling’ her. Mirjam Aigner demonstrates overlaying on a panel.
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