Mels Reclaim Magazine Feature

Artist Mel Winning transforms vintage

curiosities into unique lights 

WORDS AMY BRATLEY

Some pieces are intriguing and playful while others are dark and sensuous, yet each  have unique character and story, adding another dimension to a home. Here Reclaim talks to Mel, to dig a little deeper into her creative mind.  

How would you describe your work?

A lot of what I do is quite experimental.  I enjoy a challenge and I like to go against the clichéd way of doing things. My aim is strange but beautiful – an imperfect,

sometimes savage beauty. I’m inspired by artists like Salvador Dali, Alexander McQueen, and Belgian artist duo Mothmeister who I follow on Instagram. I love theatrical darkness. My work has been described as otherworldly and that’s where I go to escape reality when I’m working. 

What’s your background? 

As a child I found school difficult. Part of my problem was with mathematics, which has now been diagnosed as dyscalculia – a difficulty in understanding numbers, sometimes known as number blindness. I was very good at singing and dancing though, so my parents took me to join the Italia Conti Stage School when I was seven. I worked as a child actor then spent eight years in the West End in various plays and musicals. I was privileged to be in the first West End cast of The Rocky Horror Show. 

My masters was in illustration. I love storytelling: I enjoy the way I can transform things from an idea, and how it could be viewed in the future. I also got interested in artists throughout history who over-painted their canvases to save money, or as just a continuation of the process. I collect old worthless chocolate-box paintings, some with lovely old frames, that I paint over. This creates a strangeness and texture to the work as the old layer shows beneath. It’s the same with the lighting: they include layers from past and present. 

Where do you source your pieces? 

I moved from London to Manningtree in Essex on the river Stour – a beautiful medieval market town with a grisly history of witch-hunting in the 17th century. I joined the Manningtree Business Chamber to support our local shops and businesses in these tough times, and started a new market – the Manningtree Vintage & Collectables Brocante. It’s now in its fourth year, and through that I got to build up a fantastic network of market traders and dealers from whom I source everything from vintage mannequins to petrol cans. I also won the community engagement award and  the market was mentioned in The Times. I’m very proud of that achievement. 

At art school I had to do a self-portrait and because my work was based around photography and digital art, I used an old wig block and described myself through that by pinning stuff on to it. I remember laughing as I photographed it! I called it ‘a split personality with a tendency to talk too much’, hence me stuffing a sock in its mouth. After that I bought a one-legged mannequin from Ebay and started cutting it up and making things. I use all my creative skills on mannequins: the make-up, the styling, the storytelling, and the scope of what I can do with the light by cutting out pieces, really thrills me. I love working on them and I sell more mannequins than anything else. 

Where do you find them? 

A lot of people give them to me as a kind of rescue service. My piece ‘Colonial Babies’ was one of those – I couldn’t resist a pregnant mannequin. There are companies who sell used ones and you find them at car-boot sales, antique fairs and  on Ebay. I do have some that are rare from the 1960s, but  these are getting harder to find. For me it’s not the rarity or value of the items but what I can do with them – the potential they have.

‘my work has been described as otherworldly and 

that’s where l go to escape reality’