There is a great variety of art works showcasing the horrors of war. U.S. photographer Brian McCarty wants you to see it, yet through the eyes of a child. He uses art-therapy drawings and interviews with children to depict their stories. Qi Jie has more.

There is no blood or mangled bodies. Instead there are pink dolls and blue tanks. A bird from a video game represents bombs falling from the sky. An elephant symbolises a lost sibling.

BRIAN MCCARTY US PHOTOGRAPHER "I harness that to tell their stories, what they have witnessed what they have been through and give it to audiences that normally maybe wouldn't look at these things or think about these things and that is really the point."

McCarty's most recent work was set in Mosul where thousands of civilians were caught up in the fight to oust Islamic State.

The children draw the horror, the loss, and the harm they suffered. Often, their accounts are presented with symbols which McCarty then recreates with toys. The result is a mix of the realistic and the absurd, with a hint of pop culture. McCarty describes it as "reality with a dose of sugar".

BRIAN MCCARTY US PHOTOGRAPHER "It is from that childhood innocence, from that very pure place of telling the story but not telling the story and that to me is so powerful."

And this 11-year-old girl said she's drawing a bridge.

NOURHAM SALEH IRAQI REFUGEE CHILD "It is about the bridge. It was destroyed. We crossed it while it was broken. I was dizzy. I was scared."

The photographer said the process of visualising the drawings takes days.

BRIAN MCCARTY US PHOTOGRAPHER "I did this entire set up in the old city, taking photos, the smell of death everywhere, really strong, and when we were done with the photo it was only then we realized there was a skull and a body a meter away still had the beard but mostly decomposed, but I did this toy photo next to a dead ISIS fighter still in the rubble, and that is the weird bizarre can't articulate to anyone in proper words reality of the project."

Starting in 1996 in Croatia, McCarty's work has also taken him to Gaza and Lebanon. QIJIE, CGTN.