Despite 35 years as an artist and with examples of her mosaics to be found in both public settings and private ownership, Caroline Jariwala is still keen to learn from other members of the artistic community, though in this instance the piece of wisdom was about how to overcome the physical shortcomings of the plywood she regularly used as a substrate for her commissions.
Caroline’s first degree, BA(Hons) Fine Art at Cardiff, taking inspiration from her Gujarati Indian Heritage, followed by a Masters in Art, Health and Wellbeing at Birmingham University College, Caroline has drawn on many influences in her career while a steadily growing list of venues contain examples of her stunning mosaics: including hospitals, transport hubs and education centres: some offering inspirational courses for those with special needs. She also runs a series of teaching workshops for small groups of aspiring artists at her Bearwood studio in the West Midlands. Caroline’s style is a unique fusion of Gujarati and Western art, resulting in bright, colourful patterns that capture the attention. Her designs combine nature-based patterns with Gujarati Rangoli and Mendhi patterns, while she is the only mosaic artist to be voted as one of 100 Masters, a Creative Black Country arts initiative. She has become an expert in the use of picassiette or “stolen from plate”: with old, discarded and broken plates being given a new life in her work. While trying to be as sustainable as possible in making use of reclaimed tiles and distressed ceramics as the raw material for much of her work and teaching sessions, the backing materials, or substrates, are normally new sections of board and with an increasing demand for her to create mosaics which will be exposed to the weather, the reason she decided to experiment with the use of Marmox Multiboard, was the specialist tilebacker board’s resistance to repeated wetting.
Caroline commented:
“It was just over a year ago that I heard from other artists on a mosaics social media forum that they were successfully using Multiboard as a base for their work, because it is so easy to cut and offers such a good bond for different types of adhesive – and it is totally waterproof.”
“So I got in touch with the manufacturer in Kent and asked for a sample to trial it and Marmox kindly sent me a pack of half a dozen which had been slightly damaged in the warehouse, which was no issue for me as I was going to cut them down in size and completely conceal them with the pieces of ceramic tile and old crockery which mainly make up the designs.”
“I’ve done two public art projects using Marmox Multiboard, including for West Midlands Trains at Coseley Railway Station and Riverside House in Stourbridge, a health and wellbeing centre which specialises in ‘pro-disability’ arts initiatives, where her work formed part of the International Festival of Glass. I have recently completed a-year long mosaic mural project that measures 4m x 2m based on music and dance of pre-partition India. Marmox 12.5mm Multiboard is light and cuts easily just with a Stanley (craft) knife. I really like the grip the surface offers for the caulking adhesive I tend to work with. It also works for wood adhesive, while it is perfect for the metal angle framing.”
Unsurprisingly her own home is almost totally covered in mosaics, including ones reflecting her cultural background, while she regularly updates her 80,000 followers on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram about her successfully completed projects and of course, her posts have included several mentions of Multiboard’s benefits for budding mosaic makers.
Caroline concludes:
“Plywood just doesn’t work outside for any length of time before it delaminates, so I’ve talked to several other artists who really like Multiboard and I totally recommend the product to colleagues and my followers on social media. All my work is about repurposing and recycling, so I think it’s great that Marmox is so supportive of community projects and artists generally.”
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