Born of Greek and Irish
ancestry, Lia Melia studied art at Cambridge College of Art and Technology.
Since then, she has largely drawn her inspiration from nature, for many
years investigating the underlying structures of flowers and leaves.
Alongside this, she has worked with her fascination with the mythology of
metamorphosis and transformation, and has repeatedly returned to themes from
Ovid's Metamorphoses.
In
recent years, she has been developing these themes by working on the
reconciliation and integration of energy though the symbolism of the cross and
the mandala, symbols of spiritual integration that function in similar ways in
western and eastern traditions. She has also been making a series of variations on the
labyrinth - again, the emphasis is on 'finding the centre'.
A parallel interest in the fundamental correspondences of different
script and symbol systems has led her to work with her own variants of Egyptian
hieroglyphics, Chinese ideograms, and Islamic kufic script.
She has evolved a
highly individual technique. Many of her works are made onto glass panels, and often
incorporate small mirror �tiles�, or hologram patterns.
Heat-processing, and the addition of other pigments, forms a complex process
that provides a deep 'surface' of great richness, delicacy and beauty. The result is
unique, achieving a subtlety of effect that (particularly with the holograms) alters depending on the changing
perspectives of the viewer and varying light conditions, which is impossible to
appreciate fully from photographs.
Much of her work is
highly decorative, but at a deeper level is subtly informed and enriched by her
practices of Buddhism and analytical astrology.
Continuing to employ themes from nature, recent work has been focussing on various forms of water and cloud. Some of these works are relatively representational, while others verge into abstraction, inviting the viewer to explore an un-prescribed relationship with the object.
She
has recently been shown at the Quayside Gallery in St Ives, Primavera in Cambridge, The Old Fire Engine House in
Ely, and the Affordable Art Fair in Battersea, London.
She lives in a
village near Cambridge, with two cats.