Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity is spread across two locations: The Photographers’ Gallery, and The Foundling Museum. Coincidentally we made a piece of work for The Foundling Museum about five years ago. Home Truths is described as ‘an exhibition exploring representations of motherhood through the works of eight contemporary artists.’ We’re particularly interested in Tierney Gearon.
Gearon became infamous in 2001 when some of her photos, of her own children, were confiscated by the police from the gallery where they were on show. In a piece for the Guardian shortly after Gearon described her photos as ‘snapshots of everyday life’ and she pointed out the lack of staging or photoshopping as communicating an authentic representation of childhood. She often offers props, masks for instance, to her children:
‘I might introduce an element, like a mask, to a given situation, but I would never insist that the child put it on. The photograph of my little boy naked on a pedestal, for example, happened completely spontaneously. My mother-in-law was going to a wedding, and she came over to the pool to say goodbye to my son, who was splashing about naked. He ran up on to the pillar and looked down at her. I happened to have my camera there, and I took the picture. That’s how all these pictures come into being.’
