In 2004 I graduated from the University of Hertfordshire with a BA (Hons) in Applied Media Arts; the course changed my perception of the world and altered my ideology of craftsmanship within the arts. My practice drifted from my original specialism of ceramics, where I felt strangled by the restriction of scale and technical process. In to a material found in almost every house, a material with heritage and social identity. Wallpaper, I started to play with it forming gigantic origami balls pushing its structural capacity, exploring the bright patterns and tactile quality against form. I was hypnotized and soon united it with my love of narratives and symbols, which ironically would be paper based - comic books.

The final comic book image goes through a rigorous selection procedure; firstly I search for an image which I instinctively click with on an unconscious level. Some times theses searches are like looking for the holy grail of comic book images, I rummage through boxes of old comics in some very strange almost surreal shops. Then I go through the same book re-reading the story again and again, until I get into the head of the character at that final and important image. I then draw the image, editing and changing elements which I don’t like until I end up with a final full size plan. The images I choose are very powerful and emotional, even masculine to a degree and the character is usually being pushed to their limits.

At the beginning the wallpapers and comic books would be given to me as a present, there would be some kind of memory/emotion related to the design and by creating the collages I would create a physical manifestation of my relationships. However after a while I started to use any wallpapers to increase my colour spectrum, this created a strange and unforeseen tie with viewer’s, who have begun to pick out wallpapers within the work that they have on their living room walls.

I enjoy the contradiction and balance between the mass-manufacturing of both the comic book and the wallpaper with the careful craftsmanship of the collage technical I employ. A technique which I am continuously refining with an obsessive passion for precision and detail, to the point where it becomes’ impossible for the human eye to detect what the medium is and how the work is created.

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