Wait ‘Till You See These Fairytale Images Created By Photographer, Kirsty Mitchell, During Her Adventures In Wonderland

Self-Taught Photographer, Kirsty Mitchell, Gains International Acclaim

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Lavender Princess. No filter.

“Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.” – Hans Christian Andersen

By Suzanne Dooley

It’s been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and Kirsty Mitchell -fashion designer turned self-taught photographer- proves the validity of this sentiment in her series of still photographs entitled Wonderland. These award-winning photographs, honoring Mitchell’s late mother, are imbued with a beauty, lyricism and harmony that never fail to waft over me, enrapture my senses and leave me feeling inspired and keenly alive, with words on my tongue culminating into a glorified silence.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Fade of Fallen Memories. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Fade of Fallen Memories. No filter.

Beams of Glory

Born in England, Kirsty Mitchell’s earliest memories involve curling up by her mother’s side as her mother read to her stories from the books of European folklore with mythical illustrations. “[My mother] instilled in me the most precious gift a mother could,” said Mitchell, “her imagination and a belief in beauty; it became my root, and the place I constantly try to return to in my work, and in my dreams.”

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: Home. No filter.

Mitchell graduated from college with honors with a degree in fashion design, and completed two internships at the design studios of Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, both of whom affected her greatly. The years sifted by and Mitchell was happily working as a senior designer for an international fashion label, and her career was soaring. Until . . .

A Chill Of Icy Coldness Descends 

Mitchell’s mother, a retired school teacher of a Dead-Poets-Society cache and caliber, was diagnosed with a brain tumor from which she quietly died in a remote village in France, being too ill to return home to England. Instead of a grand funeral with her mother’s former students attending, a tiny family gathering was all that was had, which left Mitchell longing to pay tribute to her mother. And to cope -well, actually, to elude her heartache- Mitchell picked up a camera and began taking photographs, escaping into a fantasy world to eventually create images that echoed fragments of the stories told to her by her mother, and that to Mitchell, fondly represented the dreamy wonderment that she felt as a child.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: Spirited Away. No filter.

Night No Longer Sits Silent And Still

Mitchell immersed herself in peering through her lens -developing an intimacy with and recognition of nature never before experienced by her- and the taking of photographs took on a life of its own and began to consume her. “I was working as a fashion designer [for 13 years] and had no intention of leaving my job to become a full-time artist but it became this undeniable passion that was all I could think about,” said Mitchell. “I felt I had to make a decision. Walk away from my career or spend the rest of my life sitting behind a desk and wondering ‘what if’ [and] so I gave up my job.”

Initially, photo shoots could take up to a month to prepare, as every little thing within a frame was created by hand: one by one, each bead, ornament, flower petal, appliqué, fan, stitch, color, costume, concept, prop, set -without exception- was created and carefully assembled by Mitchell herself. As productions escalated, characters took up to 5 months to create. “There were no stylists, designers or professional support teams involved, and nothing was commissioned,” stated Mitchell. “It was simply a few passionate friends helping out for free, funded by what I could afford from my wages each month, whilst I begged and borrowed the rest.” None of the Wonderland photographs have been digitally altered, photoshopped or enhanced in any way: all the colors and every aspect of the images encapsulated in the frames are concrete and real.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Storyteller. No filter.

At times, Mitchell strived to capture those wild and fleeting flowers, such as the English bluebells, that would appear for only a few weeks out of the year. “In some cases, I would wait the full cycle of 12 months in order to return prepared with a concept and model, to capture the scene in full bloom,” explained Mitchell. “These vivid natural colors in turn dictated those of the costumes, and soon a pattern began to emerge. My aim was to portray time passing, an unsaid journey through four seasons, incorporating every color of the rainbow . . . to keep going, until there was a sense it had reached its completion.” The characters that Mitchell created were not recreations of anything that already existed. As Mitchell so eloquently described, her characters were compilations of the “faded memories” she had of the stories told to her by her beloved mother, “intermingled with her own dreams and underlying sadness of [her] adult grief.”

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: Gaia, The Birth of an End. No filter.

Life-Flowers and Blooming Almond Branches Emerge

The visual tale that Mitchell illustrates is a centripetal force that takes me on a psychedelic journey within -to the centers of my own imagination, innovation and inspiration. Out of her most painful experience, Mitchell birthed a mesmerizing, evocative “visual fable” that recounts an abiding love for her mother and lament over losing her. These emotive still frames are transcendent: I feel the loss of a love taken too soon, meshed with the fragile hope of its coming back someday, albeit in a different form.

Mitchell’s deeply intimate body of work took over five years to create, with an additional two years to bring the Wonderland book to fruition, which contains over 640 photographs, featuring all 74 images in the Wonderland collection, as well as behind-the-scenes photographs from the shoots and costume galleries. The book also includes deeply personal journal entries written by Mitchell herself (which are my personal favorites exclusive of the 74 photographs comprising the Wonderland collection) about the emotions she experienced behind the lens. “It has been a long road, and it is true to say that in losing my mother I have lost so much,” explains Mitchell, “but [I] equally discovered a new unexpected direction in my life, for which I will always be deeply grateful.”

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: She’ll Wait For You In The Shadows of Summer. No filter.

From The Harp Itself

For me, fetters are broken in these phantasmal photographs. The interplay between the images bursting forth with color and those that are absent of color, mirrors Mitchell’s grotesque pain struggling to transform itself into ephemeral beauty. And in that struggle, her grief is stunted -then later metamorphosed- by grace. I can only imagine that upon seeing her mother’s name printed in the Wonderland book’s dedication, Mitchell had a sense that her own fairy tale had come true: creating an artwork that memorialized her mother. “Because of my camera I have walked on snow covered in flowers, stood at lakes at sunset, painted trees, set fire to chairs, made smoking umbrellas, and giant wigs from stolen flowers,” said Mitchell. “I have laughed, been overwhelmed, and left in awe of all things I had previously passed unnoticed until now. My eyes are finally open, and no matter how sad the origin of it all was, I will cherish the fact that this small and very precious awakening has happened.” I myself imagine Mitchell’s mother watching over her daughter with open eyes, saturated with tears of happiness and imbued with an immutable love for her daughter.

Deservedly so, Wonderland became the most successful photography book in the history of Kickstarter, an online funding platform for creative projects of unknown artists. The First Edition of Wonderland completely sold out within a few months and the collection itself has been awarded a number of prestigious international accolades and awards, judged by some of the most important gallerists and art critics in contemporary photography today. Due to overwhelming public demand, the second edition of Wonderland has recently been released.

In a most enchanted way, and by excavating the entombed magic and beauty of yesterday, Mitchell has surely proven that out of the ashes of after-loss, fairy tales do come true. For us all.

See below for more photographs from the Wonderland collection. To view Kirsty Mitchell’s website and the entire Wonderland series, click here: https://www.kirstymitchellphotography.com

-SD

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Last Dance of the Flowers. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Path of Possibilities. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Guidance of Stray Souls. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: Gammelyn’s Daughter. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: Danaus (The Butterfly Queen). No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: In Celebration of Spring. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: Once Upon A Time. No filter.

Photograph by Kirsty Mitchell from the Wonderland series: The Queen’s Armada. No filter.