current

My current project is based on a collection of photographs taken by my father, Rudolph Papas, during the last half of the twentieth century. He was an amateur photographer and a quiet observer. He preferred to stand to the side, quietly documenting what unfolded around him. These photographs are significant because they capture the lives of my family, of Irish and Cypriot immigrants, and the navigational pull of obedience as they adapted to and assimilated into the UK.

I manipulate these photographs using pre-defined rules. I edit each one, adding and subtracting and then reworking them to form large canvases and paper works. Part of this process is rooted in my childhood fascination with paint-by-numbers kits. I bought into the idea that I could create a ‘real’ painting, just like the one on the packaging. I couldn’t understand why my creation, using the provided palette of ten small paint pots, never quite matched the richly coloured image I had been sold on the box cover. It always turned out to be a poor imitation. 

I now adopt the systematic logic of paint-by-numbers, but I also consciously embrace the imperfections. I disrupt accurate representation, using vivid colours, amplifying the unruly, messy traces of the work’s making, the visible grids, and layered textures. The colour palette for each work is determined by AI, which assigns pre-coded colour schemes to each image. Faces become monstrous and otherworldly. Process takes precedence over perfection. 

The final works are never quite aligned and not neatly joined. The seams are visible; they hang a little unevenly, obstructing rather than accommodating, the scale of them forcing the viewer to navigate around them. They are complete, but imperfect. Assertive, awkward, and in the way. I want the work to become a site for the encounter, not a mirror of a moment or my own feelings, but a place where sensation condenses, holds, and disrupts.