Tierney foi bailarina e modelo. Sem formação artística ou fotográfica durante cinco anos fez fotografia de moda. Sem projecto ou ambição comercial ao mesmo tempo ia retratando a família.
"About a year ago, Kay Saatchi, whom I know through mutual friends, asked me to donate one of my photographs to an auction she was organising for the children's charity, Tommy's Campaign. Then I donated another photograph to a charity exhibition raising funds for the homeless, and somebody bought it. I didn't discover until two months later that that someone was Charles Saatchi"
As imagens dos seus filhos são controversas e foram consideradas provocadoras, perversas e obscenas. A polícia de Londres exigiu mesmo que as imagens fossem retiradas de exposição.
"Police have warned that two photographs of naked children displayed at the Saatchi gallery could be seized under indecency laws. Tierney Gearon , who took the pictures, insists they are innocent images of her children doing 'everyday things in a beautiful way. in The Guardian 13-03-2001
"I looked at my pictures today and tried to see the bad things in them that other people have seen. But I can't. Some are describing them as pornographic, others are accusing me of exploiting my children's innocence. I don't understand how you can see anything but the purity of childhood. When the exhibition opened eight weeks ago, the Observer's art critic, Laura Cumming, wrote that I had succeeded in capturing the way that a child would look at the world, almost as though I was a child myself. The exhibition got great press, and the whole experience has been positive - until last Thursday, when I went to the gallery to do an interview and found the police waiting for me. I was completely blown away. I even started joking around with the officers because I simply couldn't believe it was happening. I don't see sex in any of those prints, and if someone else reads that into them, then surely that is their issue, not mine."
Com humildade a que estamos pouco habituados, reconhece que as suas primeiras imagens surgiram por felicidade.
"I have different ways of working, and I use different cameras. It's not like when you're a painter, where you usually have a particular style of working. Photography is a magical tool because anyone can take a good picture, and it could be an accident. I wanted to get better quality images, so I started wondering how I could do large-format negatives - with their endless, pin-sharp detail - but still retain the spontaneity of my snapshots. I discovered a lightweight large-format camera and started getting a different quality: the moment became more like a painting. It's actually not easy to do. A lot of photographers who use large-format cameras make very static pictures, and that's what I think is the edge to my pictures - they really feel like stilled moments. In the beginning, I got my images accidentally, but I subsequently learned how to be ready for the interesting moments."
A entrevista a Tierny de 2001 por Martin Herbert pode ser lida aqui.
Aos 41 anos, grávida, acompanha a doença mental da mãe por três anos para um novo projecto.
THE MOTHER PROJECT
O projecto resultou num livro. A publicação pela Steidl fala por si. Por muitos foi considerado o melhor livro de fotografia de 2007. É este:
Tierney lança-se numa busca pessoal sobre o impacto da esquizofrenia na sua família. O projecto foi documentado em filme. Foi selecção oficial de festivais com São Francisco, São Paulo, Roma, Vancouver, entre tantos outros.
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