It started in a quiet moment, walking through a high-end homeware store in London—not looking for anything, just letting my eyes wander. That’s when I saw them: a stack of cork table mats, about 28x23cm in size, tucked among glossy ceramics and designer glassware. They weren’t trying to stand out, but the natural patterns pulled me in. Swirls, flecks, and veins—like satellite images of ancient riverbeds or the bark of old trees. I felt like I was holding a fragment of a forest.

As a photographer, I’ve always been drawn to texture and detail. There was something quietly powerful about these surfaces—organic, earthy, raw. I didn’t see table mats. I saw potential. I brought them back to my studio and began capturing them in ultra-high resolution, using careful lighting to draw out every line and grain. I treated them like landscapes, exploring them with my lens the way one might explore a coastline or cliff face.

What you see in this collection are not just close-ups of cork. They’re moments where nature’s language meets abstraction. At a large scale, they transform—no longer mats, but bold, textural statements. Each piece invites you to get lost in the patterns and discover something new every time you look. It’s a reminder that beauty often hides in quiet, unexpected places. All you have to do is notice.