artists
every piece has a story, and every story begins with an artist
WEST AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND · CONTEMPORARY SCULPTURAL ARTIST
Lisa Watkins
Lisa Watkins is an award-winning contemporary sculptural artist and founder of MyShinyMadness. Through her practice of Circular Elevation, she works across assemblage, sculpture, installation and public art, revealing overlooked worth, beauty and possibility within materials that already carry a story.
about
As a child, Lisa would sit beneath a willow tree with her father’s old golf trundler, searching the ground for fragments and longing to build—before she had the tools or technical knowledge to realise the worlds she imagined.
That instinct to discover possibility within the overlooked continues to shape her practice today.
Creating art is Lisa’s way of making sense of the world and finding connection, wonder and meaning when life becomes a little too loud. Through colour, curiosity and transformation, she creates work that invites people to pause, look more closely and reconsider where value and beauty might be found.
Her process of Circular Elevation brings together storied materials, colour, reflective surfaces and sculptural construction within highly dimensional, one-of-one artworks. The evidence of the artist’s hand remains deliberately visible. Every cut, join, layer and irregularity contributes to the character of the work, carrying traces of its construction, material history and transformation.
Lisa’s work does not remain visually still. Its surfaces respond to their surroundings as shadows lengthen, reflections shift and new details emerge with changing natural and architectural light. An artwork encountered in the morning may reveal something entirely different by evening.
A screen can communicate colour and composition, but it cannot fully capture the depth, texture, scale or changing presence of these works. They are created to be experienced as physical objects—pieces that do more than occupy a wall; they alter the feeling of the room around them.
Every artwork is personally framed and finished by Lisa, with the same attention given to the reverse as the front. Resolved from every angle and ready to hang, each piece is created as a complete collector object.
A full-scholarship recipient, Lisa completed The Learning Connexion’s Certificate in Creativity (Level 4) in 2025. Her recent recognition includes First Place in Assemblage at the 2025 and 2026 Waitākere Arts Awards, Ultimate Winner of the 2025 Lake House Localised Sustainability Award and a Special Mention at CREA OPEN 2026 in Venice.
She was also nominated for the 2026 Tāmaki Makaurau Zero Waste Awards and selected for NZ Sculpture OnShore 2025 and the Auckland Art Show 2026. Lisa is an active member of Gallery Climate Coalition, has been featured in Junction Magazine and was invited to speak at the opening of the 2026 Art Salon.
Lisa has also secured Auckland Council landowner approval for Te Moko Kākāriki, a major community-led public sculpture proposed for Kumeū.
Her practice is grounded in the belief that beauty, meaning and possibility often exist where we least expect them. If a piece sparks a memory, begins a conversation or simply creates a moment of joy, it has done its job.
And if something here speaks to you, perhaps it was meant to find you.
There is always something else to find.
LOOK AGAIN. DISCOVER WHAT’S POSSIBLE
Lisa Watkins
Where Did All the Butterflies Go? transforms discarded materials into a luminous figurative sculpture that shifts and changes with the light.
Hundreds of hand-formed elements made from repurposed CDs gather across a salvaged mannequin torso, creating iridescent forms that suggest wings, movement and transformation.
Inspired by the decline of butterfly species in Aotearoa, the work considers what can quietly disappear through waste, consumption and environmental pressure. Central to Lisa Watkins’ practice, materials otherwise destined for landfill are transformed into something joyful, intricate and full of new life.
At 95 cm high, it is a true statement piece, particularly striking in a contemporary home, entrance, hospitality or commercial space where natural light brings its reflective surfaces to life.
Awarded First Place in Assemblage at the 2025 Waitākere Arts 60th Exhibition and Awards.
Sculpture / figurative assemblage Repurposed CDs, salvaged mannequin torso and resin 95 H × 53 W cm
2025