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The central concept underlying my recent practice is to test and challenge the boundaries of what a photographic image is. My process employs multi-media techniques to rework and enrich existing imagery. Slides or negatives are used as a starting point which are then painted, collaged, heat treated or even overlaid with organic materials. The results are scanned to produce high-resolution digital files that allow for large-scale printing.

Initially I worked with my own analogue archive, but as my technique evolved I began to source images from abandoned celluloid archives which was being sold as bric-a-brac or discarded as rubbish. These images, from anonymous creators, take on a new life as I work into them physically. By reappropriating them, I create images that contain only a trace of the past within. The work sits within the tradition of alternative processes as they strive to push the boundaries of what defines a photographic work.

I describe this process as Filmelio: a composite of the words film and melio (the latin word meaning “improved”), which refers to the conceptual and aesthetic end point that is reached through the reappropriation of these long forgotten slides and negatives.