Nalda Searles is well known in the West Australian art world. For nearly thirty years she has been an innovator in the use of native plant fibres and found objects from the environment for the production of fibre-textiles, sculpture and installation art works. ‘Using fibre, specifically grass, to make objects is such a basic act. It does require skill, as much in using a needle and thread as anything, if it is to be stitched. There is an irony in our culture, grass is fodder, grass is weeds, and grass grows to be clipped down one way or another. To see a patch of nice long grass suitable for stitching is a joy, to recognise it as such is a skill.’(Her blog).

Her early works comprise sophisticated basketry forms, neckpieces and other objects made in specific locales and with materials found there or given to her.

In 1992 Searles met Wongi woman Pantiji Mary McLean and they took many journeys into country together. Searles learnt Mary’s Ngaanyatjarra language and at last came to feel she was no longer ‘dumb in the landscape’. In her latest exhibition, 'Drifting in My Own Land' Searles speaks with authority and sureness and with an urgency to tell it. Hers is a landscape where plants, animals, humans and the earth itself act and are acted upon by each other. She writes in the catalogue: ‘... and I am at last taking shelter / in the gnarled / the privileged / woodlands of my mind / 'ngurra walykumunu' / it’s a good camp’.

‘Nalda Searles – Drifting in My Own Land’ is currently (March 2010) in the Katanning Art Gallery and will be touring throughout regional Western Australia and nationally between 2009 and 2013.

The exhibition includes such fibre textile sculptures as a grass skull, stately kangaroo headed figures, a vessel woven from the artist’s hair and a salvaged pram watched over by a flock of grass birds.

The Kangaroo Couple (pictured) is made from cotton mannequins, xanthorrhoea bracts, silk string, common fodder, plant dyed silk and woolen gowns. These stand almost two metres high.

Nalda Searles is not afraid to put words to the thinking processes and working habits, producing a DVD called ‘Nalda Searles – A stitching of words – Interpretations of Making and Making Do.’ She also runs workshops when her exhibition is in town where participants will learn how to combine fabrics and found objects with an assortment of fibres. Multiple skills may include basketry techniques, plant dyeing, drawing, embroidery and stitchery.

This national tour is managed by ART ON THE MOVE which is assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council and also the Visual Arts and Craft strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and Territory Governments.