Ex-crime scene investigator makes creepy dollhouses with blood spattered rooms
An ex- crime scene investigator has taken to making very creepy dollhouses with depictions of blood spattered around the rooms.
She says that despite the work not being to everyone's tastes, to her, her art is, "cathartic in some respects"
Maria O’Brien, who now works for the Police Care UK charity, revamps unloved dollhouses and creates dystopian diorama scenes of abandoned asylums and witches' covens, reports Surrey Live.
Maria says that her handmade miniature creations and figures bring her a form of "mindfulness", despite creating 'grubby' and creepy looking homes.
She looks for ways to bring her true crime ideas to life, and in doing so gives them a lot of detail and takes a while to plan them, right down to making sure the miniature bathroom fixtures are rusted the right amount, all the way to the blood spatter in the mortuary.
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A friend told Maria 'it’s not art if it doesn’t invoke emotion' (Maria O'Brien)Just after leaving the police force - just before Covid lockdown - Maria and her partner toyed with the idea of moving and renovating a house.
But after deciding to stay in their place, she came up with the idea of using her creative skills in a totally different way.
She said: “My colleague's mum was downsizing and had an old dollhouse and I thought I would have a go, and went on to buy several dollhouses.
“The abandoned asylum was originally a house partly made of wood and metal. It was in my loft for a while, and when I brought it downstairs, my partner said that it looks like an old asylum."
Maria O'Brien's hand renovated spooky abandoned asylum dollhouse (Maria O'Brien)
An Edwardian themed diorama Maria made (Maria O'Brien)Maria is often sent requests too; some which are not as gorey as the one she creates.
They can range from a miniature modern-day gym complete with bike, TV screen and weights, to a ghoulish recreation of Buffalo Bill’s basement from Silence of the Lambs, complete with gruesome bloodied handcuffs and skin suit.
Maria says that she puts a lot of time and detail into her work (Maria O'Brien)Speaking on the reactions Maria got from her macabre work in the beginning, she said: “I recognise that this is a niche, and I accept that the first time I put something out there it got unusual comments.
"But a friend said to me ‘it’s not art if it doesn’t invoke emotion’, and it could be one in a million comments that are negative.
“For me, this is a form of mindfulness. I realise people think: ‘That’s really dark.’ But I’m like, ‘is it?’
"I think that my policing career influences my work, where I saw murders and attended traumatic incidents.
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"It's cathartic in some respects. You go from attending a burglary which is traumatic for the family and managing emotions for families so that they put their lives back together, to more complex events like murders, it's challenging.
“Research shows one in five police personnel have PTSD, and one in 10 are walking around with untreated Complex PTSD. At Police Care, we got to pioneer a brand new technique to help people recover from C-PTSD.”
Maria uses discarded items in her miniatures she finds while out and about walking her dog (Maria O'Brien)As an avid photographer, Maria is also inspired by Urbex photography, capturing eerie images of decaying, derelict structures and buildings, and discarded items she finds while out and about walking her dog.
Maria explains: “I recycle and reuse lots of things I come across walking around with my dog. For example, the shower room in the abandoned asylum has a toilet made from the lid of a perfume bottle.
"One of my pieces is made from an old wine box, it is a mini witches apothecary cabinet. I love mystical and mythical things, like the Wednesday Addams Netflix show,” which Maria is making a dollhouse of the school featured in the show.
Maria says that her work, to her, 'is a form of mindfulness' (Maria O'Brien)“I’ve designed the stage from the theatre in NYC called CBGB, and would love to do the bathroom, it was really grubby. I’m a fan of the big punk venue that was huge during the 70s and 80s.
"I did once go to the Chelsea Hotel where historical writers and artists used to live, where Sid Vicious’ girlfriend Nancy Spungen died."
Speaking about her future projects, Maria said: “Next, I’m making a themed haunted house for a lady who has jumping spiders. They are so pretty, and make really good pets. I usually have to have different projects on the go because each project needs time to set.
"For example, the wallpaper needs to dry before you put the skirting boards on, you then have to cut the carpet and fit the skirting boards, and build the beds from scratch.”
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