On my trip to Sicily in 2025, I was repeatedly surprised by the contradictions. In the old city of Palermo, the Centro Storico, there is beautiful, ancient architecture next to dilapidated, boarded up buildings. There is rust and graffiti, construction, made in China souvenirs and haute couture, side by side. The destruction from WWII is still very evident, as is the resilience of towns and cities that survived many conquerors over the centuries. It is honest, proud, scarred and beautiful. When reminiscing and studying my photos after arriving home, it was these aspects of Sicily that I most wanted to convey in my body of work.

While in Palermo, I was looking for ‘collage fodder’. We went to an ephemera market in the Old Town, with vendors selling the contents of houses right on the street. I bought old newspapers and a pile of pages from books, ledgers and other sources to use in my artwork. I also appropriated pieces of old, weathered and ripped posters that had been pasted on walls probably years ago. When I got home and began working, I found that the papers were perfect. The written pages were a range of colours, from aged parchment to darker ochres, just like the buildings. So I was delighted to find that I could convey the dilapidation and aging just as I had imagined. Below are the artworks I created.