In the artist's words
I’m Mariela Rombach, a Spanish multidisciplinary artist based in Australia.
I’ve always been drawn to art not only as something to create, but as something to understand and admire. I studied Social Education at the Complutense University of Madrid while also working as a tattoo apprentice. I always knew I wanted to work with people, and eventually specialised in mental health and youth.
A few years after graduating, working on a suicide prevention and crisis support telephone line became a turning point in my life. It shaped me deeply, influencing not only who I am today, but also the way I see and make art. I will always be grateful to every single person I had the chance to speak to.
After that, I spent the following five years living away from home and travelling around the world, learning about different places, people and ways of living, while constantly reminding myself that what I do best in life is give and receive love.
When I was living in Madrid, I would often spend time at the Museo del Prado, sometimes giving free, informal tours simply because I loved talking about the paintings. I was fascinated by the stories behind the artists, their lives, the historical context surrounding their work, and even the strange theories and conspiracies that have grown around some of the paintings.
Today, oil painting is the main focus of my artistic practice. I’m particularly interested in anatomy, the human figure and the classical idea of beauty, as well as still life. I enjoy the slow process of working with oil and exploring the depth and luminosity of the medium.
The themes I explore are varied, but since I was a child, I’ve always been drawn to the concepts of life and death, light and darkness, spirituality and nature.
I also work as a realism tattoo artist in both colour and black and grey. When I tattoo, I try to bring the language of oil painting into the skin — playing with colour, light, values and texture to give my tattoos a more painterly quality.
Alongside painting and tattooing, I design and hand-engrave antique mirrors using a Dremel, also drawing inspiration from classical art. I also teach oil painting, sharing the techniques and processes that I enjoy exploring in my own work.
Although I work across different mediums, they all come from the same place: a fascination with the Old Masters, anatomy, life, and, on the other hand, everything uncomfortable, mysterious and macabre.
For me, art is an endless way of translating what I feel into something tangible. And because we are human beings, constantly evolving, learning and growing, our ideas and emotions evolve with us. That is precisely why the themes in my paintings are so varied.
