I spend a lot of time in the studio in West London watching cards fall. Most days they do what I want. Some days they don’t. The riffle is uneven or the faro collapses halfway and I have to start again. It used to annoy me. Now I think its part of the point.

Each piece begins with a proper shuffle of a premium deck — Bicycle, Theory 11, or one of the licensed ones I’ve been working with. I record it so the sequence is documented, then I hand-assemble every single card onto rigid A1 board. No prints. Nothing gets reproduced. The whole value sits in that one frozen order from the 52! possibilities. That number is so large it still feels abstract even after years of doing this.

Curators who come through sometimes ask if the randomness is the whole idea or if I’m arranging after the shuffle. I tell them the shuffle is the decision. After that I’m just fixing what chance already decided. Its slower than people expect. Measuring, glueing, checking edges. The work sits between assemblage and mosaic more than traditional painting. Some days I look at a finished board and the pattern feels almost too ordered for something that started so messy. Other days the chaos stays visible and I prefer that.

London shows help me see this clearer. Walking around during Frieze week or the smaller open studios you notice how many people are chasing the same clean, finished look. My boards are finished but they still carry the slight irregularities of real cards — the thickness, the slight warp if the glue sets differently. I like that collectors and gallerists can stand close and see the material is genuine.

If you’re looking for emerging work that isn’t trying to hide its process, this is what I’m making. Each one only exists once. I’m still shuffling.