Cleaning "Medvednica Magic" before photographing
Melanie J Hodge (née Hawkes)
was born in California in 1974 and grew up by the sea in a little town called La Selva Beach. After graduating from Willamette University in 1996 with a BA in Literature she worked as a bookseller in Salem, Oregon. In 1999 she set off on a tour of Europe and travelled from London to Ukraine, Finland to Gibraltar; not always by the most rational of routes. During the journey she met a British cyclist while staying in a youth hostel on the Lofoten Islands. They married in 2000 and have since lived (for varying amounts of time) in London, Amman, Brussels and - most recently - Zagreb.
For over ten years Melanie painted exclusively in watercolours, creating her own line of greeting cards and decorative images for children and the young at heart. In 2010, while living in Croatia, Melanie began experimenting with the Croatian Naive technique of reverse oil painting on glass. The fine detailing and rich colours possible with this technique are perfectly suited to Melanie’s style and her work can be immediately identified by it’s detail, colour, and sense of playful possibility. Drawing on both familiar and imagined landscapes, Melanie's pictures reflect a world that is at once recognizable and yet full of fairy tale fantasy.
Melanie now lives with her husband and two children in West Sussex, where she invites you to visit her home studio.