I work primarily as a visual artist and so the range of designs tends to reflect a desire for experimentation and variety, rather than commercially-oriented repetition.

Many of the patterns are reconfigurations of monetary ornament that was originally machined for securing banknotes and share certificates. This was my area of doctoral research, for which I collected a large repository of detailed scans and photos of prints made by 19th century engravers who were attempting to create ‘inimitable’ designs for paper currency.

My research into monetary ornament extends beyond its use on paper currency. I’m actually more interested in the graphic vocabulary that constitutes a wider language of certification — with paper money representing one of its more exemplary ‘statements’. Since the 19th century the printed reproduction of these ornamental conventions have given credibility to documents such as diplomas, passports and share certificates, and in abbreviated and debased forms, conferred value on advertising tokens, lottery tickets and patent medicine labels.

The genealogy of this particular form of abstraction and language has yet to be properly researched and written.