The God of the Gaps (after Joseph Alfred Bellet du Poisat) Collage

Born in 1979 in Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham. Lives and works in Nottingham. I am a collage artist who uses abstraction, geometric patterns, and analogue attempts at recreating the effects of digital glitching to explore issues of identity, memory, masculinity, cultural expectations, mental health, the distorting effect of media, and social class. My work is created using pages and covers from magazines which are then folded and torn (or occasionally cut) then pasted together to reappropriate and juxtapose images in fractured and fragmented form. Whilst there are occasional larger pieces, most work is on common A4 paper sheets (many of which have been previously used for other purposes) that are easy to acquire, easy to digitally scan, and easy to frame. That immediacy is important as it is a demonstration of how art and artistic thought should be accessible to all given that the issues covered in the work affect everyone. Built layer upon layer, the pictures are densely detailed. Care is taken to consider both the images used and how the placement on the page both reveals and hides different elements – symbolising how, in both our identities and in wider societal structures, only certain things are made overt whilst other things are intentionally or inadvertently concealed.