The Spanish Collection

In 2019, Shelley embarked on a creative adventure in Spain, visiting the ancient and beautiful city of Valencia, and then travelling an hours journey south to the small, medieval town of Javéa. Both are on the Costa Blanca, the easternmost part of the country, and right on the Mediterranean. Soaking up design inspiration and every available piece of paper ephemera with a Spanish flavour, colour or traditional motif, she created this series of 50 paper collages.

"Wine labels, torn pieces of graffiti posters, old photographs, bits of packaging, old notebooks, museum catalogues, ancient tile designs, business cards, matchbooks, textiles, tourist brochures, Civil War symbols, stamps; you name it, I included it if it crossed my creative path. The size of these small works was dictated by the dimensions of the tiny kitchen table at our Airbnb, which acted as my studio. The finished collages were then taken out onto the streets of Valencia to get some air, to be photographed as I wandered the city, and to see if I really had captured some of the flavour of the city within them. Propped up on ledges and menu boards, rested on Vespa seats and graffitied walls, they became my #takeyourcollageforawalk project on Instagram, and what a great way to connect with an adopted city! These little paper collages encapsulate the inspiring and invigorating time we had there, soaking up Spanish culture and its jubilant, sophisticated aesthetics."