The Photography of Tierney Gearon

By: Interview by Mike Piscitelli | August 12, 2011 | Photography

Mother Project Series, Walker Halloween, 2003

I first became aware of Tierney Gearon 10 years ago after hearing about the controversial images she exhibited at a Saatchi Gallery group show in London called I Am A Camera. Besides being beautifully crafted photographs there was something deeper in Gearon’s work that, to me, felt honest and remarkably personal. Not everybody felt that way. The now-defunct News of the World proclaimed Gearon’s contribution to I Am A Camera a “perversion under the guise of art” (some of the work featured images her young children nude). Police visited the gallery, questioned Gearon and insisted all of her photographs be removed. Saatchi Gallery refused, and Tierney Gearon’s name made international headlines. The controversy eventually dissipated, and Tierney opened two more critically acclaimed exhibitions: The Mother Project in 2006 (along with an accompanying documentary about the making of The Mother Project) and Explosure in 2008. Her next exhibit, opening this fall in London, explores relationships between women of different cultures and was shot in the United States, Africa, Egypt, Japan and South America.

A decade after becoming a fan of Tierney Gearon, I was invited to attend one of her infamous Santa Monica gatherings. We met, became fast friends, and I am now filing my very first published interview.

I hope you like it.

Explosure Series, Girls dancing with the bears, Upstate NY 2008

Where did you grow up?
Atlanta, Ga., but we traveled a lot. As a child growing up, we traveled to remote places all over the world, to tropical and primitive cultures.

What was your childhood like?
I had a great childhood but a difficult one. My mother was mentally ill, and my father and she were always fighting. I was in the middle — mediating.

How did you get your start in photography?
I never thought I was a person who would even think of going to art school. I didn’t think I was any good. I’m a very confident person, but I didn’t think I was even remotely good enough at art. At the time, I was modeling, and I went out with a photographer briefly, and I used to edit all of his film. So, I think my biggest influences were basically just being in the industry, you know? That’s what got me into photography. The most amazing things that happen to you as a model do not happen to you as a tourist. When you’re sitting there for three hours in some remote village in Germany or India, you see a lot. You see a lot of things go by. When most people go traveling they don’t sit and watch. They go to a monument, or they go here or there, and that’s what really trained me.

Are there any photographers who influence you?
I don’t have one person who inspires me. I’m inspired by life — real people in real situations. I don’t have a favorite photographer; I like all photographers. Photographers are the people I connect with the most because we have an incredible understanding of each other because we’re all visual people. I do a lot of lectures at museums and art schools, and I see other people’s work, and I love people sharing their work with me. I don’t have one or even a small group of photographers I can say are my favorite photographers. I don’t like giving names, because that’s not really what I’m about. I feel a lot of people would think I’m saying that that’s who I’m influenced by, but my influences are just from life.

How did the I Am A Camera cover happen? How did it change your career?
Charles Saatchi discovered my work, and he loves to create a sensation. At that time, I didn’t know how big an impact a naked photo of a child would have on the world. It was just part of my everyday life. I Am A Camera centered on the thin line between art and photography, and it used my images as inspiration. It was a life-changing experience. One minute I was validated, and the next I was accused of being a child pornographer. At the end of the day it all worked out.

And the other thing is, after the exhibition happened, I was not planning for any of [that controversy] to happen, it just happened. So, I was shocked. I suddenly overexposed myself because I was so traumatized by it. Being accused of being a child pornographer is not exactly the kind of thing a mom wants to have happen to her. Luckily for me, because it happened with Charles Saatchi, I had this wonderful support team of all these amazing intellectuals and people who are listeners and who understand art in England. If that had happened to me as a random person, I probably would have gone to jail.

Explosure Series, Capetown combined with Los Angeles, 2008

Did you set out to be an “art” photographer or to shoot jobs?
All I really cared about was being a mom, getting married and having children.

Do you still do commercial photos? Do you like doing it?
I do some commercial work. I love it because they feed off each other. Sometimes it’s hard being able to do whatever I want all the time, so when I am held back, it gives me that desire to see how far I can go.

A mutual friend of ours wanted me to ask you why you hate fashion?
I don’t hate fashion. I don’t hate commercial photography. I just feel like when you shoot fashion for magazines, it’s a commercial job that [seems like you can] be doing whatever you want, but you’re not allowed to do whatever you want. In a commercial job, you’re getting paid and there’s a beginning, middle and an end to what you’re trying to do. So, I’d rather do commercial work than fashion for a magazine because in most cases you know you’re restricted; your hands are handcuffed.

Did you ever worry that making your children the subject of your work might have a negative impact on them?
Never. I still don’t think it does. I think my kids are lucky to be a part of what I’m doing. How many people can include their friends, family and children in their work? I think what I’m doing is positive.

Now that they are older, have you asked them their opinion of the images?
Once they go up in the show they’re really proud of me, but they don’t really care. It’s kind of like brushing my teeth; it’s just something that happens. I don’t make a big deal of it. I don’t always have a camera in my hand.

How many kids do you have?
Four kids, three dads.

Mother Project Series,, Mom smoking, Mohawk NY 2000

Did you set out to make The Mother Project the follow-up to I Am A Camera?
No. When I Am A Camera happened, I became an instant success. I felt that I had just scraped the surface, and I needed to go deeper. I wanted to show the world I was not just an overnight sensation. I wanted people to respect me as an artist. Everything I do is a way of working through my issues. I blur life with art. My work is a diary of my soul.

When you look back on these images now, did you learn anything about yourself or your mom?
Well, basically, my photos are a diary of my soul; they are a way I process my issues. My mom is mentally ill. I had a very destructive childhood because my mom was not a mentally stable person. And back in those days, if you got a divorce, the kids just automatically went with the mother, and for us to live with my mom would have been a disaster, so my dad did the best he could to stay with my mom.

But at times he could not handle her and did the wrong thing, and she would also do a lot of destructive crazy things, so I was like the mediator of the two, and so, for me, I was always trying to fix my mom or take care of her. So, when I did my mother project, it helped me to process the issues I had with my mother, the problems I had as a child, my fears of becoming a mother and also me learning I can’t fix my mom. I have to move on with my own life. So, that’s what those images were about.

How did the film come about?
My agent thought someone needed to start filming me because my life is like a movie. So she met some documentary filmmakers, and the next thing I knew, I had these filmmakers following me everywhere for three years. It became part of the process, a part of my work. I exploited myself by having people follow me around all the time. That was what The Mother Project was about: my issues with having a mentally ill parent — will I be like her, how I felt as a child, my lack of boundaries, because my mother had no boundaries.

So, the documentary was also a way for me to have someone following me around, I’m exploiting my children and myself because it’s incredibly exhausting. And the shoots that they had, they could have gone any way with it. Because you know, as a photographer, you can edit anything and make it happy, or sad, or crazy — you know, whatever. So, luckily, one of the filmmakers really had a fondness for me and started, not falling in love with me as a person but as a human being. It was really important for him to show what I was all about instead of making a provocative display of my life and making me look like a crazy person with a bunch of crazy kids and a crazy mom…

Knaab Utah Road Trip, Michael and Emilee road kill, 1999

I think he did a good job. I watched it, and it was so inspiring to me. I was inspired watching you in that film.
People like the film because it’s very honest and pure; it’s very raw.

Watching the film, I felt as though your approach to capturing a moment can be almost obsessive.
I’m not an obsessive person. I’m just an intense person.

Let me explain. When I take pictures, I’m actually predicting moments, predicaments that may happen. When I get into photo mode, I’m creating moments, family dinners or lunches, situations where I’m doing things with the kids, or we’re having lots of people over.

When I’m in photo mode, I become somewhat psychic. You have to predict things that are going to happen, and it’s very intense, and it’s very exhausting. Like, when I go visit my mom, I’m in absolute photo mode so that everything that’s happening, I can see it before it happens.

Sometimes, I will do something to throw the situation off to make a more interesting image. And the thing is, it is set up. Let’s put it this way: I do set it up but in a way that people don’t know it’s being set up. I’m like a director. Like, even when I’m working in fashion or commercial photography, I will invite people to the shoot so it creates chaos, and it throws people off so they have to stay in the present; they forget about what they’re doing, and they start doing things you wouldn’t expect them to do.

Let’s say I was doing a shoot and I had someone show up with a snake — everyone will be so distracted because they’re focusing on the snake, and then you get a great shot. That’s what I do; I’m constantly doing stuff like that. I know how to cut things up with people, without them knowing. I don’t say, “You stand there. You hold this.” That would be boring.

Do you ever feel too exposed?
After the I Am A Camera show, I exposed myself. I got naked. Now, I have my clothes back on — if that makes sense.

Do you photograph your youngest children now?
Yes, of course. I continue to shoot all of my kids, my friends and my family.

How would you define your relationship with your mom now?
I have a great relationship with my mother. I love her. I cannot fix her, so I just try to celebrate her.

You seem to host a lot of get-togethers and surround yourself with an eclectic group of people.
When I came to L.A. I didn’t know anyone, so I started to put together these gatherings that mixed all types of people. My trick to making a good party work is to let people invite a few people they know, that way they would not be on their own. Then, when people got there, they would always run into other people they knew, so it all worked out.

Mother Project Series, Mom smoking with Michael in the snow, Upstate NY 1999

Do you like to be alone?
I love being alone.

Tell me about the process behind the Exploser series.
The images are not retouched at all. They are just as shot in the camera. This body of work was the untangling of all the chaos I created in my life. One day, I woke up with four kids and three dads, and then a new boyfriend just after my fourth was born. My life couldn’t have been more crazy. So I untangled the mess in my life. I untangled the images in the camera. I double-exposed the film, shooting one image on top of another trying to make it all work.

What happened was, I met Simon de Pury, the guy that owns the Phillips Gallery — and he asked me to do a show after he saw the I am a Camera, Daddy Where Are You thing. So what happened is, I was like, oh my god, that took me three and a half year’s to come up with that body of work, and they wanted it to be in a few months. At the time, I was working on some images that were just some nudes of myself, so I said, “OK, fine.” My friend said I should work on those again. Those were just self-portraits of me where I got naked with different people, and I did couple more, and I just didn’t like it. I was humiliated. It looked set up. The boss said, “Why don’t you just double-expose and then you can just put yourself naked with all these different people, and they won’t even know you’re there, and it’ll be great because you’ll get all these different expressions.” So I said, “OK! Great idea.”

So I started doing that, and the technique was so interesting to me. I realized that not only do I not have to be naked in the photos, I don’t even have to be in the photos. So, I started branching off and getting all these amazing images. And, you know, with this technique I do absolutely no retouching, no Photoshop; everything is done in camera organically, and it’s the most crazy, difficult thing I’ve ever done.

What do you have planned next?
I’m working on some children’s books — ABCs and shapes will be the first. I’m also doing another show in London on the relationship between women of different cultures, shot in the United States, Africa, Egypt, Japan and South America. The last thing I’m doing is a combination of all the images I’ve ever done, the more personal stuff that I want to publish as a book.

Q FOR QUEEN QUIET QUEEN, Izzy and Grace, August 2010