Ready to hang canvas; 92cm x 122cm 'Jumping Ship' is an original, vintage paper, large and detailed hand cut collage on a black acrylic painted ground. I have recently waded through a personal 'sea change' and similar to a ship being towed from a crowded harbour and heading to peaceful open water, I left the city and moved to a small far south coast seaside village. I find my peace walking along long, empty stretches of beach watching the waves roll in.

I use recycled papers to speak of the transient and impermanent nature in our our lives. Making a new story from the old. I defy the notion that the personal and private in artmaking is self seeking or immature. Instead I diffidently use the personal as a starting point in my art making process. Like taking cuttings from a personal garden.

Although I finished my fine arts degree with a painting major, I embraced a more intimate and personal process which I find with collage, mixed media encompassing at times needlework and collage and small reworked domestic items.

Collage especially allows this reworking and pastiche to make a new story or 'paint' a new picture. I adore the process and opportunities that collage allows and embrace using and recycling vintage papers and magazines - the ephemeral and the discarded. That which is fleeting/ passing and impermanent and giving new life and form - a new story.

This work speaks of swimming away and with the protective armour of a silvery fish scale type costume, taking a deep breath and 'Jumping Ship'.