Melanie Watts
On graduating in 1993 with a BA (Hons) degree in textiles, Melanie was offered a full time studio position creating bespoke hand drawn and painted wallpaper collections and furnishing fabrics. She was drawn to Mosaic after trips to Morocco where the vibrant alhambra tiles inspired her to start pursuing ways to enhance walls and floors and to Barcelona by Gaudi’s Mosaics and architectural masterpieces. After this, she started creating Mosaic from her Milton Keynes studio; commissions and books of her mosaic quickly followed.
For Melanie, mosaic is about re-assembling pieces: creating a thing of beauty out of broken fragments. She has attention to detail and colour, inspired also by many artists from the past and present as well as the decorative arts, in particular art nouveau. Her preference is to create work that resonates with her spirit, that excites her soul and lifts her up.
2014 saw her creations embellishing the Town Hall in Santiago when Melanie was chosen from thousands of applicants to represent Milton Keynes and the UK on an international mosaic project.
In 2017 Melanie was invited by the Indian government to create artwork for them in Gujarat, and she has just been selected by Italian mosaic professionals to exhibit a highly contemporary mosaic based on Milton Keynes depicting its shapes, rhythms and colours, at a prestigious mosaic event in Florence.
Melanie’s artwork for ROCLA - Emblazoned Butterfly Mosaic
Butterflies are an important part of our global and local ecology and their numbers are in decline. Researching on Redhouse Park and the area surrounding us, Melanie identified the Peacock Butterfly from the many different species we see in our gardens in proposing her design for a beautiful mosaic. The 1.5m mosaic will be mounted in a metal frame and positioned where it catches the light so observers can truly appreciate its stunning beauty and magic.
