Even if you haven’t heard of the artist Rob Ryan, you’ve probably seen his distinctive paper cut-outs somewhere before – perhaps in the pages of Vogueor the windows of the chi-chi London department store Liberty.

Currently, he’s collaborating with the fashion designer Paul Smith on a new ceramics range, working on a confidential project with Disney, finishing off the Fortnum & Mason Christmas catalogue, and putting together his own children’s book, as well as working on one for the author Caroline Duffy and preparing for two exhibitions later in the year (at Castor & Pollux in Brighton in September, and at St Jude’s Gallery in Aylsham, Norfolk, in November). Oh yes, and then there’s his newly opened shop, Ryantown, on Columbia Road in East London.

“I didn’t really make a conscious decision to open a shop at all,” recalls the 46-year-old Ryan, removing the bright aqua wooden shutters from the windows. “A friend rang me and asked if I would be interested in taking it over. I’m busy enough as it is, but as Columbia Road is only open at the weekend, I thought, all right then. And that was only about six weeks before we opened.”

Ryantown feels like a lively, magical place to be. It’s a clean white space that’s part gallery, part shop, with Ryan’s limited edition, framed paper cut-outs hanging from the walls. There are intricate designs of swirling trees, birds and bells, silhouetted lovers and poetic, floating words. Sentences such as “Other planets cannot be as beautiful” drift past falling leaves, flow inside a watering can or sit in the heel of a shoe.

Loping around the shop in a blue T-shirt and shorts, with his dark wild hair sticking out crazily from under a baseball cap, Ryan looks like a mad professor. He points out long colourful rulers propped up against the walls, a newly painted, tiled mosaic decorating the entrance and some wooden keys that dangle from the shelves holding laser-cut greetings cards and painted glass. He finds working on objects for the shop a welcome break from deadlines. “It’s like me-time. There’s no pressure and I can do whatever I want,” he explains.

For Ryan, words and pictures coexist happily together and it’s rare that his cut-outs contain no words at all. “My work operates on an openly emotional level and it’s quite sentimental, which I don’t think is a bad thing. It’s easy for people to access and they get it immediately. I’m not sure if it’s an Irish thing, maybe Irish people are sentimental,” he says, scratching his chin absently.

Born in Cyprus to Irish parents who came to England in the 1950s, he always knew art was for him. Growing up, he used to draw in his spare time, achieving his only A grade at O-level art before going on to do a foundation course and an MA in printmaking at the Royal College. “I went to art school for seven years,” he reveals, slightly incredulously. “I think people in my family thought I was never going to leave.” His wife Lorna is a textile designer and his two daughters, Maria, 19, and Barbara, 16, are both showing signs of having inherited the creative gene. “My elder daughter is musical and my younger makes a fanzine – she’s very trendy.”

Ryan began focusing on paper cut-outs six years ago in a bid to make his work simpler, his message clearer. “The actual germ of an idea is just a moment of thinking, maybe that’s how things are, or how they should be, or how I want them to be. The world’s a confusing, contradictory place and I try and make some sort of order out of it.”

He works from 8am to 6pm in his studio and can spend anything from an hour to a hundred hours on a single piece. A small team helps him to juggle the requests and e-mails he receives – during this interview he finds a note left on the shop counter by a well known fashion name interested in collaborating with him. He thinks he’d like to do more work in America, but for now he’s trying to tie up loose ends before going on a family road trip around California.

“An idea will just appear and float around like a little cloud so I have to jot it down in my notebook before it disappears,” he says of his creative process. “I’ve realised that the busier you become, the more you need new ideas. I sometimes think, God, I hope something’s going to drift in soon.”

Ryantown, 126 Columbia Road, London E2 (www.misterrob.co.uk), open Saturday 1-4pm & all day Sunday

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