Hi, I'm Steph.

I'm an analogue collage artist, embroiderer and storyteller based in Southeast London, creating one-of-a-kind artworks from vintage photographs, paper ephemera and found objects.

I've been making collages for as long as I can remember. Even long before I knew collage could be an art form, it was simply the way I understood the world.

I studied French and Film at King's College London before building a career as a writer. After years away from making with my hands, I found myself returning to collage almost instinctively. Picking up scissors and glue again felt less like learning a new skill and more like remembering an old one.

Today, I create artworks using materials that have already lived another life. Vintage magazines, old books, forgotten photographs, discarded packaging, worn playing cards and tiny scraps of paper all become the starting point for new stories. I'm endlessly fascinated by the history these objects carry and by the possibility of giving them a second life.

More recently, embroidery has become an important part of my practice. I stitch directly onto vintage photographs, matchboxes and found objects, using thread to quite literally connect past and present. Historically associated with domestic labour and women's work, embroidery becomes a way of reclaiming, interrupting and gently rewriting inherited narratives. Some pieces combine collage and stitch, while others explore each medium independently, but they're all connected by the same curiosity about memory, transformation and storytelling.

Humour has always been an important part of my work. I love creating unexpected combinations that make people pause, smile or look twice. A slice of watermelon becomes rain. A television replaces a man's head. Butterflies hide a woman's eyes. A matchbox holds a tiny embroidered landscape instead of matches. There's something magical about taking familiar objects and quietly asking, "What if?"

Sustainability sits at the heart of everything I make. Almost every material I use is vintage, reclaimed or rescued from being thrown away. I rarely throw anything away myself; even the tiniest offcut might become tomorrow's cloud, bird or horizon. I like the idea that every fragment still has a story waiting to be told.

As a writer as well as an artist, I don't really separate words from images. Both are ways of telling stories. Whether I'm creating an original collage, embroidering onto a century-old photograph or designing artwork for a musician, I'm always looking for the narrative hiding beneath the surface.