About the Artist

Wonderland

Following the tragic loss of her mother, Kirsty immersed herself deeper into photography to help deal with her overwhelming grief, and in the summer of 2009 embarked on her now revered 5 year series entitled ‘Wonderland’. She describes the project as a therapy, an alternative existence filled with fantasy, sadness and longing; inspired by the faded memories of the books her mother Maureen had read to her as a child, imbued with the pain of her adult grief. Over time it evolved into an autobiographical journey, where the protagonist Katie mirrored Kirsty’s emotional state in the real world. The scenes are entirely real, true scale and took months for Kirsty to hand make all the costumes and props, which were then assembled out in the English landscape.

As the series grew, it developed a global fan base of over 450,000 followers online, resulting in the photographs achieving a viral status and extensive international media coverage. The acclaim for her work and escalating demands of the project led Kirsty to finally leave her fashion career behind at the end of 2011, to commit her future to the completion of the collection and producing the Wonderland book.

The Wonderland Book

In 2015 despite a number of offers from major publishers, Kirsty decided to launch her own Kickstarter campaign to self publish the Wonderland book in collaboration with renowned British book designer Stuart Smith.

The project was launched on September 9th, 2015 and has since become the most funded photobook campaign in crowdfunding history, a title it still holds to this day. It closed at almost 500% funded – a total of £334k, with backers from all over the world supporting the book. The success of the campaign enabled Kirsty to create the book she had always dreamt of for her mother, made from the highest quality materials, printed in Italy at one of the most best book factories in the world.

The resulting huge volume contained over 640 photographs, featuring all 74 pieces in the Wonderland collection, as well as extensive behind the scenes imagery from the shoots and costume galleries of the pieces made by Kirsty. Most importantly for her, alongside the photographs, the book contained the deeply personal journal written by Kirsty throughout the duration of Wonderland, which documents the creation and meaning of the works, as well as her emotional journey through grief.

Cancer & ‘Quiescence’

In September 2016, whilst in Italy printing the Second Edition of the Wonderland book, Kirsty found a lump in her breast and was later diagnosed with cancer; her son was just 8 months old at the time.

Mitchell describes the years that followed as the darkest in her life, going through surgery, radiotherapy and then entering into 5 gruelling years of hormone treatment and its subsequent side effects. During this period Kirsty began slowly planning a new series entitled ‘Quiescence’ as way to process her experiences. The word Quiescence refers to a period of dormancy, a stillness, which is affectively how Kirsty describes what had happened to her career and life since her diagnosis. The term is used in human biology to describe cells that cease activity, yet have the ability to return to life with the right stimuli, which in this case for Kirsty, was art.

Inspired by the artist’s personal life between 2015 – 2017 the project will be split into 3 chapters, based on Kirsty’s pregnancy, the creation of life in the womb, and then switches abruptly to cancer and her eventual recovery. Just like Wonderland, it will be translated into a fantastical tale, but based on real events.

Kirsty is now 7 years clear of her cancer and is at last off all treatment. She lives and works alongside her husband Matthew who’s role has evolved greatly into becoming the producer of ‘Quiescence’ with Kirsty as its director. Together they live in the English countryside with their young son Finch.