Behind the Paper

Your background blends corporate project management and digital strategy with an earlier foundation in art and illustration. How does that analytical mindset influence your creative practice today?

My project management background completely shapes how I look at a board. I approach a body of work very much like a creative project; it is highly organised, deliberate, and structurally sound from the initial concept to the final layout. Because of this background, I actually love the challenge of taking a chaotic pile of old magazines and organising them into something incredibly precise. This systematic process results in a clean, sharp aesthetic that is heavily influenced by the structured shapes of Art Deco.

Although you studied art and illustration earlier in your life, you didn't fully commit to collage until much later. How did you find your way back to making art?

The real breakthrough actually came during lockdown. I had taken a break from the corporate world to focus on my family, and I found myself trying to entertain my young children by making art out of everyday items from our recycling bin. What began simply as a fun way to pass the time with my family unexpectedly re-ignited my own creative practice. It completely shifted my perspective and ultimately shaped the hand-cut collage art I create today.

Your compositions are incredibly precise and entirely handmade. Walk us through your materials and how a piece actually comes together on the board.

It is a painstaking puzzle of hunting for the exact textures and light gradients to build a completely new reality out of everyday paper. My primary materials are old magazines, which are wonderfully donated by members of my local community, alongside specific colour books. I also love the experimental process of creating my own hand-painted papers from scratch—using rollers, brushes, paste papers, and mono-printing large sheets to create unique textures. The real fun is challenging the viewer's perception. I want people to move past the initial surprise of realising it is hand-cut paper, invite them to look closely, and discover the clean lines and meticulous craftsmanship underneath.

Despite the precision of your final layouts, you’ve admitted your studio floor gets quite chaotic by the end. How do you balance the logic and the mess?

Collage for me is a beautiful balance of logic and escape. It allows me to apply a structured, project-led mindset to a chaotic pile of magazines, whilst finding a deep sense of mindfulness in the quiet, patient process of cutting and piecing it all together on board. But the actual making process is a beautifully controlled chaos! By the time a piece is finished, I end up covered in tiny paper fragments, and my family is constantly finding rogue snippets of old magazines stuck to the bottom of their socks for weeks afterwards. It is the messy, joyful reality behind the clean lines of the art.

Beyond your own studio work, you also channel your background into local initiatives like The Bay Collage Club and the East Kent Art Society. What draws you to those projects?

Working with the local art community is really just the perfect way to scratch that project management itch. It lets me channel my background in digital strategy and project coordination into something creative, whilst allowing for a much better work-life balance now. A big part of that is running my business, The Bay Collage Club, right from my own studio. It is incredibly rewarding to share the space and watch other people fall in love with the medium just as much as I have. Alongside that, helping to modernise operations for the East Kent Art Society allows me to apply those valuable corporate skills within a local, community-focused setting.

MAHL is returning to The Horsebridge 14 years after the collective's very first show there. As you enter your second year with the group, how does it feel to bring this refreshed lineup back to Whitstable?

This is my second year exhibiting with MAHL, and I feel incredibly grateful to have been invited into such a respected, well-established collective. Returning to The Horsebridge during the Oyster Festival brings a brilliant energy to the town. Collage is fantastic at capturing the spirit of a place through tiny fragments, and I love seeing visitors connect with the work. Having founding members exhibiting alongside newer faces perfectly captures what the East Kent art scene is about—growing, passing the torch, and keeping things fresh.