Denise Jaques

Redefining what it means to be a mosaic artist in the context of contemporary craft, Denise Jaques explores how pushing the boundaries of materials, technique and process helps her to navigate a dialogue between traditional crafts and the future of contemporary mosaic. Believing that ‘you need to learn the rules, before you can break the rules’, Denise has developed her own unique interpretation of contemporary mosaic.

Denise is known for her highly complex mosaics, full of contrast, texture and distorted reflections. She specialises in creating original hand made ceramic and glass tesserae, bespoke for each collection.

The Warp + Weft collection, seen here at Collect, explores the relationship between woven structures in textile design and contemporary mosaics. Echoing the process of fibre to woven cloth, a similar process has been applied to create these striking mosaics.

Here, Denise has created the threaded warp from hand made ceramic threads, whilst the weft shimmers with textures of distressed gold and gilded glass to create distorted reflections. She has used traditional mosaic techniques to hand cut, shape and apply each piece. Each mosaic combines hundreds, often thousands of hand prepared tesserae.