BEAUTIFUL RENEWAL OF SPIRIT IN WONDERLAND

KIRSTY MITCHELL

How do you create a wonderland? It takes a fine artist, a brilliant technician, and a genius magician, to start. Kirsty Mitchell is all of that and more. Her Wonderland series, created over the past 8 years, is an astonishingly beautiful, exceptionally intricate portrayal of fairytale fantasies. She has a new show and a special edition book to commemorate.

Mitchell was inspired, both by fairytales and the untimely death of her mother. As both a creative exercise and a way to manage her grief, Mitchell began to create Wonderland images, marrying her talents as a professional fashion designer with a new-found photography pursuit.

Eight years ago, Mitchell stood in a lavender field just after the dawn, terrified and clutching a camera she barely knew how to work when she took her very first photograph of The Wonderland Series. It was a pivotal moment. “I had never truly ‘looked’ until it was through a lens… life was different, more beautiful, more sad, and extreme in every sense of the word,” Mitchell says.

The surreal photo-compositions that ensued became Mitchell’s passion. She poured her soul into them. She expressed her inner yearnings, fears, and curiosities. The Wonderland series is beautiful tribute to her mother.

Ideas for Mitchell’s images came from childhood memories, stories her mother told her, connections to her mother’s own soul.

“She instilled in me the most precious gift a mother could, her imagination and a belief in beauty…… it became my root, and the place I constantly try to return to in my work, and my dreams,” Mitchell explains.

Mitchell created all of elaborate costumes and props she uses in her compositions. She scouts and amplifies lush settings.  

Mitchell’s productions are not a piece of cake. They take days, sometimes months to pull off. One of the most complicated pieces in the Wonderland series, “She'll Wait For You in The Shadows of Summer,” took 6 months to plan, prepare, and set up. The dress she designed for the photo took 20 workers to sew the enormous silk shape together. The shoot took 14 hours in order to get the one single shot that became the finished piece.

Mitchell had worked as a fashion designer, including work for Alexander McQueen and Hussein Chalayan, before she leapt into her Wonderland endeavor. And, in doing so, her life became a new wonder.

“Life has became a different place, ‘a second chance’ is maybe the only way to describe it, and for that I am so grateful. Since embarking on this path, I have walked on snow covered in flowers, stood in lakes at sunset, painted trees, set fire to chairs, made smoking umbrellas, and giant wigs from stolen flowers. I have laughed, been overwhelmed, and left in awe of all the things I had previously passed unnoticed until now …….”

Check out the extraordinary Wonderland book. It contains 74 photographs from the Wonderland collection. It is now in its second edition.The Collector's Edition of the Wonderland book is exceptional, with its fabric box and it’s exquisite bronze key. There are now only 5 remaining available for sale.

Check out Mitchell’s current Wonderland exhibition on view at the Paine Art Center and Gardens through October 15, 2017. Limited Edition gallery prints are available here. And check out Mitchell’s Instagram. And see more of Mitchell’s work and story in Dreams As Soul Creations.

If you like Mitchell’s magical images, check out Daniela Majic -- similar, yet with a wonderland style all of their own.

Read more about Beautiful Wonderland in Experience A Beautiful Otherworldly Wonderland Right Here on Earth and Gorgeous Alice in Topiary Wonderland IRL.

And check out more beautiful things happening now in BN Mind/Body, Soul/Impact, Nature/Science, Food/Drink, Arts/Design, and Place/Time, Daily Fix posts.

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IMAGE CREDITS:

1. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland: The Fade of Fallen Memories.”
2. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland: The Stars of Spring Will Carry You Home.”
3. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland : Portrait of a Princess.”
4. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland: Gaia, The Birth of an End.”
5. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland ‘Gammelyn's Daughter, a Waking Dream’.”
6. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland ‘The Ghost Swift’.”
7. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “She’ll Wait For You in the Shadows of Summer.”
8. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland : Rose Child.”
9. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland : The Secret Garden.”
10. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. Collector's Edition of the “Wonderland” book by Kirsty Mitchell.
11. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland: The Fade.”
12. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland: The Queen’s Armada.”
13. Image: by Kirsty Mitchell. “Wonderland: The Last Door of Autumn.”
14. Image: by BN App - Download now!
15. Image: Courtesy of Kirsty Mitchell. “Kirsty in Studio.”