Born in Dunedin New Zealand
Studied at the Dunedin School of Art graduating in 1981.
Diploma in Teaching (Art and Art History ) Auckland College of Education
Background includes art education both within school and community environments, freelance design work and independent film-making projects
At present living in the South Waikato working full time as an artist.
E M Mertens’ work is linked closely with nature and how we interact with nature.
Mertens formal art training was in sculpture not ceramics and this allows her the privilege of not knowing what the correct procedures or rules are when working with clay. This often leads to failures but it also throws up the best and most exciting of discoveries. Many hours are spent experimenting with different clays, making slips and adding unusual ingredients in order to achieve the results she wants.
Nature is suspended by Mertens using clay to capture life and preserve it without losing any of the forms beauty and delicacy. It’s the same sort of reasoning ascribed to painters who capture life in a beautiful way – to make sure it lives forever. The perfect imperfections of nature – it is the textures, shapes, lines, contrasts, colours, fragility and decomposition that inform and intrigue. Mertens has a lifelong fascination and love for museums the way we attempt to contain, document record and display everything for perpetuity regardless of the damage done in the process.
People’s need to control and define nature fascinates Mertens, and her work is often a statement about our relationship with the nature world and our obsessive interaction and disruption of this world. This obsession can be seen both in formal controlled environments such as museums but also in our daily lives.
Mertens is presently working on a variety of projects based around these ideas.
Her work can be found in both public and private collections.
Public Collections
- James Wallace Arts Trust Collection
- Barry Hopkins Waikato
Private Collections
EM Mertens work is in various private collections both in New Zealand and overseas including the collections of
- T & P Dixon
- R & C Lilley
- L& J Porus
- P O’Neill
Exhibition History
Solo Exhibitions
- June 2015 Wallace Gallery Morrinsville , Loss
- Dec 2013 West Coast Gallery , Piha Beasts and Botanicals
- April 2012, TCAC Upstairs Gallery, Lopdell House, Titirangi Collections, with guest Annie Bonza
- September 2010, West Coast Gallery , Piha A lighthearted look at the seaside and other things
Group Exhibitions
- 2016 Portage Ceramic Awards Finalist
- 2016 New Zealand Sculpture on Shore
- 2016 Earth Elements / Flight or Fight Estaury Arts Orewa
- 2016 All In Wallace Gallery Morrinsville
- 2016 Playing With Fire taupo Museum
- 2016 Matariki Helium Gallery Rotorua
- 2015 Portage Ceramics Awards – finalist
- 2015 Central Otage Gold Awards – finalist
- 2015 Waiheke Community Art Gallery – Figurative Form
- 2015 Waiheke Community Art Gallery – Close to the Heart
- 2014 Portage Ceramics Awards – Peoples Choice Award
- 2014 New Zealand Sculpture on Shore – Works selected for Indoor Gallery November 6 – 16
- 2014 Phonography – TCAC Upstairs Gallery Nature and Wildlife Award and Peoples Choice Award for “Drop’
- 2014 Collaboration with Tony Brown – Upstairs Gallery , Titirangi April 2014
- 2010 Top Floor Lopdell House, Educators Art Exhibition
- 2010 Micro Macro – TCAC
- 2009 and 2010, Lopdell House Gallery, One Night Wonder
- 2009 Waitakere Art Awards Finalist and Lincoln Green Sculpture Awards
- 2009 Piha Gallery, Festival of Light Exhibition
- 2009 Portage Mug show
- 2008/2009 Titirangi Community Arts Council, Emerging Artist Awards Finalist
- 2008 Lopdell House Spiral Gallery, One Potato, Two Potatoes Winner – Category Year of Potato
- 2006 Trash to Fashion Garment selected for show made from woven video tape and based on Venetian mask festival
- 2005 Portage Mug show Winner – Popular Choice Award
- 2005 Tourism Auckland Photography Exhibition Merit Award
- 2004 Mighty River Power Photographic Exhibition Winner Non Professional Landscape
- 2004 Homeboy Homegirl Tokoroa Photographic Exhibition