London-born Ian Mellish initially trained as a visual artist.
He studied violin and electronic music at the North East London Polytechnic and recieved his Doctorate in Composition from the University of York.

Visual art still plays an important part in his work and many of his compositions are ispired by this medium such as the tape works tinguely, Rauschenberg, pollock, Riley and wHolE (Warhole) and the monumetal multitape works Rothko (lasting 10 weeks, 3 days, 15 hours and 20 minutes) and Olitsky (339.214 years and 55 days)

His multi-media works include Brush Work ( for the animator Clive Walley which won first prize for experimental film and soundtrack in the 1993 Cinanima festival in Portugal) work for the video artist Mireille Chan, Orientation, Recognition 12 and Recognition 117), the soundtrack for the film The Forth Man by Nick Hoare and a remix of Telling Fibs for the film Die Sprache des Wassers by Michael Guzei.

Since 1989 he has been the Prodution Assistant for the british-based contemporary music ensemble ICEBREAKER.
He founded the Merkin Zimmer Ensemble in 1999 and this ensemble made its debut at the Wiener Musik Galerie "Icebreaker Festival" at the MAK in October.

Ian Mellish has lived in Pyhra, Austria since 1997

07.12. 1999: "The Relative Violin - Wien/Vancouver"