I collect ephemera to use in my work including atlases, maps, postage stamps and textiles. Bringing new life and meaning to these beautiful and redundant items has real significance for me. Collage, assemblage, print, drawing, applique and embroidery all feature in my practice. Looking to the past, I am searching for allies and evidence that things have been different and can be different again. By cutting up and re-organising images and text I am creating new stories and pathways, making sense of things that feel out of time or space. 

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Artefacts and specialist collections found in local museums provide meaningful starting points for my work. Traditional union banners housed at Woodhorn in Northumberland, and The People's Museum in Manchester, are of particular relevance to my current work. Growing up in the North East of England meant having a strong sense of local history and tradition. From the story of shipbuilding on the Tyne to the castles, priories, ports and coal mining towns of Northumberland, the past reaches out to me, raising questions about where I am from and what I value.