Junk Mail 01 Collage

The title ‘Junk Mail 01’ refers directly to the disposable materials that have been repurposed in the piece. It was one of a series of four in which I began to tile estate-agency flyers or cereal packets to make larger compositions. I like my work to be affected by my surroundings, by what is available to me at a given time. Each tile is designed to succeed alone but creates new relationships when placed with others in a group. It’s really a natural progression from my earlier work, ‘16 x 228s’, sixteen stickers embellished with layered character designs and framed together, but this was the first time I’d joined separate pieces without gaps to make a new singular work, rather than a collection. I’m influenced by sticker art and graffiti but more specifically the impermanence of urban walls; how they naturally change over time with the adding of tags, stickers and paste-ups, but also the subtraction of parts that are ripped and weathered. It’s man-made and yet it’s evolved in a very natural way.