Wonderland 

 by Kirsty Mitchell

Kirsty Mitchell's wonderland series was in memory of her late mother, Maureen, who died of a brain tumour in 2008. Her mother was a teacher who spent her career telling fantasy stories and creating tales. Kirsty developed these series of images to represent brain cancer in the story and characters her mum produced.  

'Real life became a difficult place to deal with, and I found myself retreating further into an alternative existence through the portal of my camera,' said the artist. 

I find this series of images so inspiring. The fantasy and beauty in all these images are so breath taking and emotive. It took over a year to produce all the images. All created in camera using extravagant costumes, props and hair and make up. The images are a reflection of her mums stories but I also feel they are a reflection of the disease that took her mother. If you look into the symptoms of brain cancer these are metermorphis of them. The cluttered mind, the intrigate strands of nature are a representation of the brains wiring. All the colours are the colours of a brain and the leaking red suggests the pain and hurt the disease can cause. The imagination of a person who has lost there mind stuck in a place between reality and fantasy as the brain starts to faultier.    


This has been my favourite find from my research and inspired me to look into representations of illness through imagery. Even though this wasn't the intension of these images the back story lead me to this way of thinking.