Bio and Artist Statement

R. Mertens is a fiber and interdisciplinary artist whose practice explores the intersections of materiality, identity, and technology through textiles, sound, and performance. He holds an M.F.A. from the University of Oregon and a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His studies have taken him to the Burren College of Art in Ireland, Apulaya Center for Andean Culture in Peru, and NWTC in Wisconsin for audio engineering—an eclectic mix that informs his cross-disciplinary and culturally attuned approach to art-making.
Mertens’ work has been exhibited internationally, with solo and two-person shows at the Bureau of Queer Art, Hangaram Museum of Design (Seoul), and Arlington Arts Center (VA), among others. His extensive group exhibition record includes venues such as the Bellevue Art Museum (WA), Museum of Contemporary Art (VA), and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where he is a fellowship recipient.
His practice extends beyond making into curation, academic leadership, and international education. He is Associate Professor of Art at James Madison University, where he leads the Fiber Arts area and has directed multiple study abroad programs in Ireland and Costa Rica. Mertens is also a recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including the Trawick Prize (2nd Place), multiple faculty research awards, and recognition for mentoring excellence.
A committed educator and advocate for the field, Mertens regularly presents at national and international conferences, contributes to the Surface Design Journal, and is an active member of professional organizations such as SEFEA, MFAEN, and the National Women’s Studies Association.

ARTIST STATEMENT:
“Anthropologies of the Body often view the human form as a sort of text, onto which meanings and experiences are inscribed during people’s lives, rendering the body effectively as an artefact of material culture.”

— Martin J. Smith, A. Starkie, R. Slater & H. Manley
My practice as a fiber artist is rooted in materiality and process. I work at the intersection of handcraft, acousmatic sound, and the rituals of loss—creating hybrid sculptures and installations that serve as meditations on fragmentation, spirituality, repetition, and impermanence. These themes emerge through an ongoing inquiry into broken narratives, quotidian gestures, textile structures, and patterns of entropy.
Influenced by the language and methodologies of anthropology—particularly reflexive, context-driven archaeological approaches—I explore the body as both archive and artifact. My series Archaeology of the Body examines the human form as a site of excavation, drawing from concepts like midden, relic, and ancient text(ile). Each work is constructed from raw wool and ungalvanized steel—materials that are crocheted, woven, and wet felted. The wool contracts through felting, and the embedded steel rusts, dyeing the fibers naturally while accelerating decay. These transformations—visceral and inevitable—are part of the work’s core meaning.
Before my engagement with fiber arts, I trained in sound art. That ephemeral foundation continues to echo in my practice, where sound and performance are integral to the experience of the work. I often wonder: could the memories on magnetic tape function like a stitch in a blanket? Like a wrinkle, or a scar, or a tattoo? The metaphors of textile—looping, weaving, layering—mirror the body’s own processes of growth, trauma, and repair. Felt, with its isotropic and rhizomatic structure, resembles skin—chaotic, intimate, and uncontrollable in its transformation.
This body of work emerged in response to my cancer diagnosis at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alone in silence, I became attuned to the sounds of my own body—my breath, heartbeat, tendon stretch, digestive gurgle. I recorded these sounds and now embed them in my sculptures, animating them with a breath of life and mortality.
My intention is to create space for quiet reflection on impermanence—a tactile and sonic landscape where decay is not only acknowledged but embraced. The Portuguese word saudade comes closest to the emotion I try to evoke: a melancholic joy, a longing laced with beauty and loss. As Francisco Manuel de Melo once described it, “a pleasure you suffer, an ailment you enjoy.” This, to me, is the fragile truth of being alive.


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