Rhona Tooze has been a batik artist since the late 1970’s.

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Having qualified as a specialist secondary art teacher from Swansea College of Art. She has been exhibiting regularly since then, with work in public and private collections throughout the world.

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She also runs classes through the DACE department at Swansea University.She specialises in images of Welsh life, her subjects including rugby players, chapels, street scenes and, more recently, beach culture.

Batik is the art of wax resist dying and is an art form very popular in the Far East where it is often used for clothing. To make a batik, selected areas of cloth are blocked out by brushing or drawing hot wax over them. The cloth is then dyed. The parts of the cloth covered in wax will reject the dye and remain the original colour. The wax is then removed and the process starts all over again with the repeated waxing and dyeing building up the image.

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After the final dye, the wax is removed, the material dried, and the artwork is ready to be mounted and framed. “Batik is a very exciting medium to work in. Using hot wax on fabric is quite precarious and a little bit dangerous. I burn myself regularly! It can also be very smelly and messy but the results are always a pleasant surprise!"