My initial reactions to a project about the two Alice in Wonderland books were 1) to steer clear of illustration and 2) not to look at any existing imagery. This was quite a tall order as the imagery of Alice is so engrained in the popular imagination.

I decided to plough my own furrow and take a more lateral and possibly contraversial approach. I have used three personas for Alice: a photo of my grandmother from about 1905, a contemporary image of a waif-like size-zero model and one of Tenniel's illustrations, suitably graphically modified. My cast of characters replace the various eccentrics and animals of the books with the hoodies and holligans of the modern age. I have also tried to retain a sense of mystery in that Alice appears a ghost, because there was a suggestion that, in the end, Carroll actually 'killed off' his character.

The results embrace the comparisons between Victorian culture and our own; the morals, contradictions and issues of law and order. As the books (particularly 'Looking Glass') see everyhting in a twisted and distorted way, I thought this was relevant now as it was 150 years ago.

From a technique point of view, I used a lot of paint, straight from the tube, to make sure these images were nothing like the smooth pages of a book!

Click on an image to scroll through the works: