"Once I get started talking about my work it's difficult for me to get off the subject, so I'm conscious of keeping this as brief as possible! Fortunately the idea is pretty simple. I make composite images on particular themes, using material collected from magazines, newspapers, calendars and also incorporating my own photographs. Once I feel that I have accumulated enough stuff to start a particular picture, I cut out lots of squares and create what is in effect my own jigsaw. In the final picture, I am very careful to use only one piece from each bit of source material, making the whole process very laborious but more satisfying when the image is completed.

As you can see if you glance at my portfolio, the main focus of my work has been creating a series of landscapes of Scottish mountains. I am a keen mountaineer so the motivation is pretty straightforward, if I can't get out to the hills its great to be able to experience them in the comfort of my own living room. Over the years I have perfected my technique, and settled upon different styles of composition, progressing from simple abstract pictures to an increasing sense of realism. The challenge for the second series of seasonal landscapes was to make images that were as realistic as possible. To get an idea of how one of my landscapes slowly evolves, you can click on the slide show opposite .

Now using this very basic principle of a composite image, you can obviously make a picture of anything you like, as long as you can collect enough material to help with the editing process. So early on, among other things, I made a composite picture of a motorbike from motorbike magazines, a beach scene out of travel brochures, and later on a yacht from sailing magazines. Simple. However, what really interested me was creating a portrait, which ultimately led to the construction of 'Who's That Girl?'. Over the course of eighteen months or so I collected together over 150 images of female faces of a similar size and last summer sat down to see what came out. I didn't know if I could make the picture realistic or not and was pretty chuffed with the result. This has inspired me to collect material for a series of portraits, both male and female, which I hope to exhibit in the next year or so.

Just one more thing to talk about. This is the thinking behind the two travel pictures 'Spanish postcard' and 'My ticket out of here'. These were made up from a collection of detritus accumulated on my trips abroad, including bus, train and air tickets, cigarette packets, tickets to museums and the sights, visitor flyers and postcards. The material obviously evoked personal memories of each holiday, but I hoped to make a composition which had a universal feel to it. Of course, now I've sold the pictures I'm plotting another expedition which will hopefully pay for itself. At least that's the theory!

I am itching to explain one more aspect of the work but I think I've probably lost you already. So I'll leave it in picture form under the title 'the difference between what I do and a simple mosaic'.

It's a boundary issue! "

Cheers
Geoff Allan