Roland Hicks is a British sculptor, working in painting, mixed-media collage and sculpture. Hicks’ latest body of work uses used gouache, paper and coloured pencil to refashion and scrupulously reproduce the texture of plywood and Oriented Strand Board (OSB). His move from painting to sculpture was instinctive and freeing, departing from his photorealistic, figurative painterly style as he began to experiment with everyday materials such as blue-tack and chipboard. Though visually reminiscent of machine-fabricated board, imitating the rough texture of its compressed wooden pulp, his latest works are instead painstaking trompe l’oeil reproductions of such materials. Contrasting the reality of the artist’s process, the works appear to be composed at speed, as though offcuts are found in the corners of his studio and stapled together. In producing this visual fallacy, Hicks’ works are playful and inquisitive of their own materiality, asking the viewer to contemplate the time and value of the artist’s labour, and to reconsider our first impressions.