Entranced by an optical illusion? Here lies the fish mosiac, more than just decoration. It’s a portal to a world where art meets nature.
In 1996, the London Borough of Croydon gave Gary Drostle an unusual brief. It simply said: “Do what you think will be best”. This freedom led to the creation of a small, two-meter diameter mosaic. Drostle designed a trompe l’oeil fishpond. He didn’t know it would start a long journey of depicting ponds in mosaic art.
Drostle found something magical in representing water on a floor mosaic. Water’s surface is complex. It moves reflects light and casts shadows. It seems both there and not there at once. Translating this into mosaic, a very different medium, was a challenge. But it also gave Drostle great artistic freedom. The success of the Croydon fishpond mosaic was unexpected. It won awards. It gained wide recognition. Drostle began his path of creating water in mosaic.
In 2000, Drostle and his business partner Rob Turner, under the name Wallscapes, took on another project. Landscape Design Associates commissioned them. They were to create a nine-meter diameter mosaic fishpond for Southampton East Park. The design, by printmaker Caroline Ishgar, drew inspiration from the Croydon design. This project became a turning point. Until then, Drostle designed mosaics he knew he could create. He used familiar colors. But Ishgar’s design ignored these limits. In grappling with these difficulties, Drostle’s technique advanced greatly. Suddenly, the mosaic’s surface came alive.
Inspired by nature, Drostle moved forward with a private garden commission. The clients wanted a mosaic fishpond like the one in Croydon. To avoid repetition, Drostle went back to nature. He sketched and painted real koi ponds. This groundwork allowed him to focus on the water’s movement in a new design. Continuing this exploration, a commission for Carterton Town Council in Oxfordshire combined surface movement with shadows from the original mosaic.
A major commission in 2009 for Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset presented a new challenge. The idea was to create a triptych of floor mosaics representing local flora and fauna. Representing birds on a floor mosaic seemed difficult. Inspiration came from local canals, called rhynes. In their reflected surfaces, Drostle saw birds and plants. This added a new dimension to his pond mosaics.
Later, a commission for the University of Iowa took water portrayal in a new direction. It became an allegory for life. In this mosaic river, each line represented a life. The lines flowed through a landscape of Native American, Amish, and local basket-weaving patterns. The golden section symbolized a life in balance with nature.
Drostle sees endless possibilities in water-themed mosaics. He hopes to create a trompe l’oeil bottom for a swimming pool. Also, he wants to design a waterfall down a wall. He is currently working on a tide pool mosaic for a children’s hospital. The mosaics will help children discover hidden seashore plants and animals.
The artist Gary Drostle says making the surface of water in mosaic captivates him. But at the same time, it frustrates him because he inevitably fails to capture it perfectly. Each mosaic pushes him to create the next one.