Fairy-Tale Artwork for a Mother Lost

Artist Kirsty Mitchell (Facebook Page) has been creating a series of "Wonderland" images to commemorate her mother who lost her battle to cancer.  Mitchell's artist statement reads:

‘Wonderland' began in July 2009, as a small summer project in memory of my mother Maureen whom I lost to cancer 7 months before. She was an English teacher who spent a lifetime inspiring myself, and generations of children with her captivating stories and plays. She was my best friend, and so escapism through my camera quickly became the only way to deal with the reality of my loss. Nothing prepared me for the enormous personal journey that followed, as the project spiralled into a 3-year adventure, leading me to leave my 10-year career as a fashion designer, to commit my future to producing the book and exhibition of the series. The project has been created out of nothing, and is the result of relentless hard work, in which almost everything within the frame has been made or designed by myself with the help of the hair and make-up artist Elbie Van Eeden and the occasional kindness of friends. There are no large support teams, designers or stylists involved, and nothing has been commissioned. The characters and their worlds are the blurred hybrids of the stories and book illustrations from my childhood memories with my mother. Nothing is a direct recreation of a particular tale, and the title ‘Wonderland,' was purely to express a girl's escapism through the pages of her book – something that echoed my personal situation in real life.
Despite initial impressions, my work is not the result of multiple digital composites and Photoshop special effects. It is for this reason that my work sits between the lines of traditional photography and digital artistry as all the elements including their locations and colours are real, made by hand, and true scale. The pictures are polished with retouching, and in a few exceptions I add small manipulations to suggest a sense of magic, but that is all. My focus is to create ‘fantasy for real' using anything from smoke bombs glued to umbrellas, to painting trees and making giantesses out of models balancing in 8ft dresses. I push myself to create whatever is necessary to bring the illusions to life, and then document the process in my online ‘Diary'
The support for the project from around the world has been overwhelming and at times deeply moving. I never imagined anyone to understand the emotion I felt behind the camera, yet I continue to receive letters from people from all walks of life who feel connected with its sentiment and find beauty with the frame.
The series is now in its final stages with its completion planned for the end of the summer 2012. There are currently 60 pieces in the collection.