Mondo man of the Maruka Collage

It’s illustration, cartoon strips, unhurried snapshots. Torn, cut and scratched away, it’s collage. An assembly of paper and glue, pigments and ink. There are colours and patterns, textures and lines drawn in black pencil and white chalk. It tells us about getting from A to B and about idle ramblings, catching fleeting instants, narrating the passing of time. My work is a reflection of myself, caught somewhere in the past, forever a boy in love with paper, pencils and pigments, their smell and material presence, with the manipulation of these simple but time-honoured tools to put across a vision of the world. From a few torn sheets that give the first “brushstrokes” to the infinitely small fragments that pick out minute details my images are painstakingly built up in layers, the final picture slowly emerging like a photograph in developing fluid. There is joy in the very process and a passion in striving to convey beauty.