A “secretive” musician and artist is returning to his childhood neighbourhood Queen’s Park this month where a free exhibition of his work is being showcased.

Brent & Kilburn Times: Still from Paperface's video A Bigger Man. Picture: PaperfaceStill from Paperface's video A Bigger Man. Picture: Paperface (Image: Archant)

Paperface is exhibiting his drawings, prints and animations at the Worldly Wicked & Wise Gallery, in Salusbury Road, from February 18 to February 29.

The composer, who has written some 1,000 pieces of music "mostly in secret", is playing a special one-off free acoustic performance on February 26 from 6.30pm to 9pm.

Paperface said he doesn't "feel it's necessary" to show his face and created a persona for himself after he moved out of London and into a lighthouse owned by a "solitary" landlady.

He has spent the last 15 years working in a modern-day version of Tin Pan Alley, a group of music publishers and songwriters from New York City, writing music for television, film and radio for popular programmes.

Recently, he has made music accompanied with drawings and animations which are featured in the exhibition.

His debut album, 'Out of Time', was released in 2015 to critical acclaim followed by Love in the Time of Florida. His videos have won awards at international film festivals.

The former St Augustine's pupil said: "I was given a guitar when I was eleven years old. My mum had told me I couldn't have one unless I did better at school - this was problem as I wasn't particularly good at anything useful.

"Somehow I must have just about done well enough, because she relented.

"I started making things up on it straight away. I thought that's what you were supposed to do. I made sense of playing it by imagining where my hands should be on the fretboard, like a picture."

Spending so much time alone as a youngster got him doodling, which now forms part of his work.

The father-of-two said: "I was always drawing as a kid. My brothers were much older than me and I spent a lot of time on my own.

"My father was really good at painting, he used to take me to the Natural History Museum and show me how to draw the skeletons on display.

"Then we'd go to the Zoo and draw real animals. He taught me to look at things from the inside out."

He added: "I often tend to think in pictures. One of the pieces in the exhibition is made from all the parking tickets I have received over the last 15 years. I remember getting angry about a ticket and then resenting that feeling. I had the idea of saving them and making them into something.

"The finished piece is titled 'I get around'. I hope to sell it for the combined cost of all the tickets!"