1 What is/are the primary reason(s) for you to make work in the first place? I make work because I have an insatiable need to make. It gives me a lot of pleasure to get immersed in the act of making which is why all my work has an obsessive element to it. It is like a meditation and when I can work uninterrupted for several hours I can lose the sense of time and be in the 'Zone'. I have always made things out of other stuff as far back as I can remember. It is as if I look at something and I see another language to translate it into. Perhaps the fact that I am bilingual means that I take it for granted that there is more than one way to express something. 2 What do you intend your work to convey to an audience? I hope to show that the objects that surround us have a existence and a language beyond the obvious one on the surface. I hope the viewer will look beyond the message and through to the messenger 3 Why do you work in your chosen medium and format? The format is determined by the objects I choose to work with, from the very small in the case of postage stamps to the very large if I work with wall-paper. The choice of materials is dictated by the skills I already possess. I worked as a paste up artist where I learned many of the skills I use when I work with paper. I am also a competent knitter so a sweater is to me more than a garment to wear as I understand it's making and intrinsic language so it "speaks" in a way that metallic objects, for instance, don't. 4 Technically speaking how do you go about constructing your work, that is the image or object itself? What devices do you employ? I take something apart painstakingly to dissect and separate the components so that I have a palette of elements to work with, and recompose the new piece. It is all done by hand, I use hundreds of surgical blades and time. 5 Which period(s)/artists/specific works of art are you influenced by and how directly? How does this manifest in your work? My library features more books on semiology and philosophy and authors who use the inner language of words and meaning, like Georges Perec, than monographs. But I am interested in the arte Povera movement and the Oulipo movement. I do feel indebted to many though even if it doesn't seem obvious; Cezanne, Shwitters, Picasso, Barthes, Perec. The obvious manifestation is the using existing object rather than art-materials as my medium 6 What stimulates/informs your work from the world around you? Everything has the potential to draw me in but all my ideas have come when out of the studio or the art world. Some object seem to talk to me when their language is in tune with me. Usually I am more likely to be attracted to objects that have a short shelf life and are considered disposable. If it is a material I feel I can work with I can hear and understand the object 7 What stimulates/informs your work from your own personal experience? My work is very complementary to myself. It is as if it is the expression of a part of my personality I want to externalise rather than be. Maybe If I wasn't doing this work I would probably be an obsessive compulsive. Which makes my art practice an indispensable part of who I am. It is probably thanks to years of therapy that I can separate these aspects of my personality! 8 From where do you derive your other visual source material (i.e. non art historical) and how do you implement this material within your work? I have been working with printed images which we are bombarded with everywhere we go, stamps, comics, newspapers...even litter. like discarded wrappers or scraps of textiles. I treat these like my palette and try to ignore the message they convey but focus on colour and texture as a painter would see the different qualities of pigment and media. 9 What are the main problems that you face in making your work? The time it takes to make the work is quite frustrating as I inevitably have a backlog of projects that I want to develop. I have tried assistants but I haven't found any that are as obsessive as myself so I end up having to re-do the work myself. 10 Where do you intend to take your work from here? I would like to experience with some projects that involve sound and film.