Tacita Dean raids the past for her Christmas wrapping paper design

This is from my found postcard collection. It's over 100 years old and German. I overpainted the Prosit Neujahr (Happy New Year) at the bottom, and painted on the red Santa hat. I like it because it doesn't really work. She looks rather uncomfortable at that angle, holding her arm up like that. I overpaint postcards from my collection a lot. I'm not sure this sums up Christmas, but a lot of trouble went into constructing this photograph all those years ago: the backdrop, the snow – which I think must have been hand-painted black flecks on the original negative. I enjoy the artifice and invention of the pre-digital world.