I’m Southampton born and bred. I grew up in Bitterne and I now live in Hamble.

I’ve always been creative – I did a foundation course at art college but then somehow life took over and I had a break from art for quite a long time.

I discovered collage about four years ago by chance. I visited a friend’s art studio and had a real craving to do something creative again. I spotted a pile of magazines and some glue in the corner of the room and it was one of those eureka moments. Hours later, I was still there, cutting pictures out of the magazines and making collages. I had found my medium.

Sometimes collage art gets a bad press. It isn’t always seen as a proper art form. I very much disagree with that stance. After all, the Cubists were using collage over 100 years ago, so who are we to say it’s not art?

I started producing my own work and sharing it on my Instagram account, @mcollageart, which became my sales platform too. If it weren’t for Instagram, I don’t know what exposure I would have been able to achieve.

I also sell my work to furniture restorers like the amazing Boogaloo Boutique, who print it onto enormous A0 size sheets that they use for decoupage. Their pieces are simply incredible.

I think a lot of creative artists are very wary of AI, but I believe we should embrace it. Whereas once I was limited to what I could find in magazines, these days I use AI to produce my own imagery, so I’m in control of the whole creative process.

One of my favourite aspects of my work is teaching others. I run workshops from my home and I’d really like to do more of them in 2025. It’s a lovely, relaxed atmosphere – we start at 11am and finish at 3pm, with a break for one of my wine-expert husband’s fabulous home-cooked vegan lunches.

My workshops are open to anyone who wants to learn collage. We cover cutting skills, how to use a scalpel, assemblage, mounting and how to fix mistakes. Sometimes people come back for a follow-up workshop or a one-to-one session.

I’ve always loved working with other artists and I’d certainly be interested in further collaborations. I think it’s easy to become insular. I’d also like to partner with galleries and other art spaces: I have exhibited locally and it would be great to do more.

I enjoy taking commissions. I was approached a couple of years ago by a company that wanted me to do four pieces that now hang in their head office. I was also approached by Photoroom, who make an app that I use to cut out any unwanted detail in the images I’m using in my collage work.

Photoroom were considering marketing the app to artists and they had seen what I’d been doing with it, so they asked me to do a promotional video for them. It’s now on their website. In the last eight months they have started to write an AI program which I am trialling for them. They’ve got my work on display in their Paris office too.

It would be great to have my art on display in public settings like libraries, where it’s accessible to everyone. I think it’s crucial to promote the arts. It’s scary that we’re not tapping into the creative side of people. It is as important as the academic side. The arts are a huge form of self-expression, which is so important for our mental health.