Mosaic artist a popular choice
Second people’s choice award for Jane Santos
Winning the Arotake Toi Mahara Arts Review People’s Choice Award for the second time has not diminished the surprise and pleasure Waikanae mosaic artist Jane Santos felt when the award was announced.
Back in 2019, the last review before Covid and the Mahara rebuild intervened, she won the award with Te Aro Cameo, one of her meticulously crafted mosaics of heritage Wellington houses.
In the latest review — part of Toi Mahara’s opening programme — the only thing that changed was the suburb. Her 2023-24 entry, Mount Cook Transformed, was just as popular with visitors to the gallery.
In 2019 she regarded her success as a vindication of the mosaic art she has pioneered in New Zealand. Her reaction this year remains much the same.
“I was both surprised and delighted with the award. There is no critic so merciless as the general public.”
The story of her conversion to mosaics goes back 25 years to when she was living and working in Britain.
“I was working in another medium in London when I saw the work of Emma Biggs from the Mosaic Workshop. It caught my eye and inspired me to know more.”
She took some tuition and, in her own words, has not looked back. She came to New Zealand in 2002 to work full-time in the medium and found that Wellington’s old villas and bungalows lent themselves to being
captured by artists.
“My subjects come from all over Wellington but in particular Te Aro, Thorndon, Berhampore and Mt Victoria. The houses are as authentic as I can make them but the settings are my own.
“I have also worked with trees and foliage before mosaics and I love to combine the two together.
“To date I have completed over 200 cityscapes of Wellington. Some panels are large and some small, but all are worked from photographs.
“I have always been interested in buildings and architecture. Before moving to New Zealand I was doing mosaics of English houses and historic buildings — so it was natural for me to look at houses here.
“In some small way, I am preserving the history of Wellington which may disappear in future years.”
Santos’ work has evolved over the past 22 years during which she has developed a two-layer system as a way of helping perspective.
“I believe my style is unique as are the tiles that I use, which have to be imported from Europe, in the main.
Glass I usually buy from Australia and the United States as well as from New Zealand.”
She has exhibited in Wellington, Auckland, Australia and England and sold her work from selected galleries. She considers herself fortunate that her work has pleased, and been collected by, so many buyers from around the world.