Using miniature dolls, and sets placed on found fairy tale backdrops, I create narratives, which draw on—and enact— personal history and recollection alongside sociopolitical commentary. The contradiction of good and evil inherent in fairy tales render an appropriate backdrop for the confrontation of narratives between personal fact and fantasy that are not what they seem at first glance.

I use dollhouse size––1-inch to 1-foot scale–– dolls in my art practice to retell visual stories, echoing the way that I was told tales of war and escape as a child on my grandfather’s knee. Fascinated since childhood by dollhouses, they provided me with a refuge from a noisy and disruptive household, and became an early influence for how I now retell and re-narritivize my life.

My photographs are digital C-prints still life narratives, which until mid 2012 were shot completely on set. In late 2012 I began to add the backdrops digitally.