Biography

Regina Marzlin is a visual artist working predominantly with textiles and paint. She was raised in Germany, resided in Australia, and is currently based in Nova Scotia, Canada. 

Her colourful and textured stitched fabric collages combine unique fabrics that are created using surface design techniques like painting and printing. Regina is inspired by themes touching on human interaction, ecology, and heritage. Her art incorporates mark-making and abstraction and is furthered by exploration to push the boundaries of the medium.

Regina has been exhibiting and marketing her art since 2005. She continues to promote textile art, curate exhibitions and teach workshops. She is a juried member of the international artist organizations Studio Art Quilt Associates and Art Cloth Network, as well as the Textile Artists Collective of Nova Scotia. 

My creativity flows from a place of material exploration and play. Crafting something with my hands has always been a necessary part of my life. To bring an idea to life for others to see feels magical.

I make art to make sense of my world, to find out what my thoughts and perceptions are and how I relate to my environment. After moving several times and living across three continents I became adept at grounding myself again and again. Being open to forming relationships with new places and communities became an integral part of my nature. 

The loss of familiarity goes hand in hand with an intense curiosity. What can I notice and really see in this world around me? What do I think about it? What will I learn? Making art is a process of discovering all that and responding to it. The intuition that guides me to use certain colours or lines in my artwork is a voice that I want to listen to, because the result reflects who I am right now.

I work predominantly with textile materials. This allows me to use the time-honoured skills of sewing and stitching as a means of layering and affixing disparate elements. The resulting textile collages hold softness as well as texture and depth. I am fascinated by the endless possibilities to transform the fabric through processes of applying pigments in various ways. Dyeing, printing, or painting changes a piece of white cloth into something unique and oftentimes unexpected. I respond to the altered surfaces in a way that leaves room for improvisation without losing sight of the vision I had for the work. The added layer of stitching by machine or by hand again reshapes the piece by enhancing texture, introducing new linear elements, and emphasizing certain areas above others.

I strongly focus on the formal elements of design in my compositions. The use of juxtaposed lines and shapes highlights contradictions and introduces tension: straight vs. organic, dark vs. light, thick vs. thin. I get excited by unexpected colour relationships, bold marks and repetition. The grid as a nod to traditional quilt designs often plays an important role in unifying and tying together otherwise unstructured units. It’s quiet rhythm and geometric quality guides the eye. Through printing with natural materials, like leaves or feathers, I introduce recognizable figurative imagery that is embedded into non-representational settings. In abstracting what I see in nature and in man-made structures, I leave the door open to diverse interpretations and perceptions.

I invite the viewer to pay attention to the world around us, to observe closely and get excited about details, to be aware of their surroundings and their fellow human beings, to be open to the marvel and mystery of the familiar and mundane. We live in the here and now and need to stay mindful.