In Conversation With: Michael Bailey-Gates: b. 1993, USA

GHK: When you started making work as a teenager in New England, was your creativity driven by something you wanted to express? Your work is, after all, so connected to questions of identity. 

MBG: It all clicked for me when I realised that you could cope with something through your art. That was a big theme for me, that I could articulate myself through something material, which has helped me enormously throughout my life. Emotionally or otherwise, it’s a language that can be used to cope or connect, and as a teenager that was something I found transformative and exciting. Connecting with all these other people through my art felt really powerful.

GHK: And was photography always your preferred creative language? 

MBG: My approach to photography has always been pretty all-encompassing when it comes to other art forms. It’s very hands-on. I think of the images as a kind of document, but the way they’re made – with props, sets, costumes, all of that – interrupts the formality you might normally associate with a more institutional photograph. So there’s always this tension between something that looks like a document and something that’s clearly constructed. 

GHK: So when did you decide that you wanted to take this passion further and study at the School of Visual Arts in New York? 

MBG: I grew up in a place where school was basically religion. Both my parents were teachers, so there was always this idea that college was the be-all and end-all. Choosing art was pretty scary at first, but at the same time I was starting to have this kind of rebellious awakening – that feeling of, you know, “maybe none of this actually matters in the way we’re told it does.” 

Looking back, I think I mostly just wanted to leave home and be surrounded by other photographers. I had already been connecting with people online who were making work, and moving to New York meant suddenly being in the same place as all these people I’d been talking to for years. When I arrived, a lot of those relationships just became real life very quickly, and many of those people are still my friends today. It still feels kind of unusual to think about –a mo being a teenager connecting with people through the internet, and then moving to a major city and already having a community waiting for you. 

GHK: It’s an anachronistic story in a way: it feels like your pathway – you falling into this crowd – is something that used to happen. And it was a creative community?

MBG: Yeah, so a lot of the people I photograph make their living as artists, often making work about their bodies. Some of these people have been in my work for a year, others for ten years, some are like characters that come in and out. That same thing is true of a lot of photographers that I love – this durational commitment to making the work. 

GHK: And is there a level of reciprocity in terms of you then participating in their projects? 

MBG: Yes, I think so. As I get older, I’ve noticed that I’m maybe less involved in other people’s worlds, but it’s definitely very specific to each person I work with: every story is a little bit different. 

GHK: Your work is often related to queerness in an expanded sense, of non-conventional identities, of gender-play, of world-building beyond the norm through image-making. How do you relate to these descriptions of your work?

MBG: My work is queer because my life is queer. It’s not something I set out to illustrate; it’s just an honest reflection of the world around me. At the same time, the questions that come up for queer people – bodily autonomy, health care, the freedom to exist outside the norm – really apply to everyone. When governments start targeting queer and, more specifically, trans people, it’s remarkable how many people assume the policy will stop there. 

GHK: In terms of the formal qualities of your images, there are some clear consistencies: you often appear in the frame, we encounter your collaborators, and there’s this sense of playfulness in costume, styling, or props. What would you say marks out a Michael-Bailey Gates photograph? 

MBG: Using myself in my work has always felt more honest to me, so that’s been with me since I started this process of making pictures. Then there’s the fact that I grew up in a post-industrial mill town in New England. A lot of these towns began as small villages built around a mill, so there were always lots of abandoned, dilapidated, dangerous buildings that I could sneak into to make portraits; they’ve all since been torn down. Looking at the aesthetics of my work and thinking about the through-line, you can feel that influence – of having been a kid with a camera crawling through a dirty mill. The aesthetic always has this polarity. Maybe it’s a beautiful face against something that’s really roughed up. It feels theatrical, intimate too. Equally, when I’m editing my work, that’s when I find my voice in the process. 

GHK: We’ve spoken a lot about transformation in a durational sense, but there’s a more fleeting sense of transformation in what’s being performed for the camera – like a game of play, where new identities are explored. Is this how an image comes to life, or is it meticulously planned?

MBG: I usually arrive with a very clear idea or drawing of what I want. Once I get the picture I was after, I tend to loosen up. I can be annoying in that way – I know exactly what I’m looking for. But I also have to trick myself into leaving room for something unexpected to happen.

GHK: Was there a particular project that felt like a real turning point in your practice? Where your thoughts and ideas started to come together in a more formalised way? 

MBG: Definitely. Working with Jasper for my exhibition at Ravestijn Gallery, A Glint in the Kindling. I remember him telling me: “you need to document the old before you can move onto something new.” I’m not a person who likes to look back on my work too much; I try to be present, and I always like to look ahead with all my projects. But him saying that made me organise my work and look through everything in depth. That was a big turning point, and then bringing the pictures I’d made into this monograph.

A Glint in the Kindling became this marker of an era for me, and one that – from the perspective of the present day – is very important to me. I think the word ‘certainty’ comes up a lot for me when thinking about that body of work. There’s a Voltaire quote that says something like: “uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is a more absurd one.” In looking at other artists who make work about other people, it’s funny how certain I felt about so many things, or how certain I felt about the individuals in the pictures. As time passes, how much of that remains true, and what changes? 

GHK:  Which works were brought together for that show? 

MBG: The exhibition dealt with themes of gender and transformation, and for me, it was also about this overarching connection between my friends. It goes back to that idea of focusing on a group of people, their shared beliefs, and this imprint of ideals. As time has passed, I can see that it’s about looking beyond binary thinking, giving one another the space to transform, about being playful with our bodies. In the current political climate – in the US, and everywhere really – that work is important to me. The work has changed a lot in its meaning to me, and there’s a kind of innocence to it that I hold onto. Maybe there’s some grief I feel about it too. 

GHK: What do you mean by grief? 

MBG: I think it comes back to that question of certainty, you know? I feel some grief about certainty in general, but I’ve also had a lot of changes in my life that have shifted how I make work. I sound a little vague here, but there’s things that just prevent transformation – whether that be your government, your medical access, your financial means, the hard knocks of life. The innocence of making that work feels so nice to have documented. I’m grateful for it. 

GHK: For this interview series, I’ve spoken with many artists working with The Ravestijn Gallery, and it’s interesting to see some of the threads that connect them. Where do you see yourself within this scheme? 

MBG: I definitely find kinship with Jasper and Narda in that I’m making work around the body and considering what photography’s relationship is to the human body. What I really appreciate about the gallery and the work they focus on is that it feels timeless. Jasper and Narda have such a strong understanding of work that speaks to the history of photography, and that’s a very special interest of mine: photography that challenges this idea of truth. They’re not afraid of a controversial picture! 

GHK: I was actually going to ask about one of your own controversial pictures… 

MBG: Which one!? I don’t keep count! 

GHK:  I was thinking of the nude Madonna and child type image. 

MBG: I mean…nudity in relation to my work comes up sometimes, and I think it boils down to the fact that I don’t like clothes very much! They really date an image and can lead your picture in a completely different direction. I’ve always felt jealous of painters because they get away with so much; people talk about the nude in photography so differently. I do want my work to exist in the historical context of art in general, and I’ve always felt that photography gets unfairly left out of that conversation – a photographic nude always gets interpreted through a really pervy lens. 

GHK: So it’s a question of visual literacy, of the general public’s expectation of what a painting can be versus a photograph, is that were the outrage comes from? 

MBG: Yeah – it’s that idea of truth again. People accept that what a painting depicts isn’t real, whereas with photography there’s this kind of signed contract that everything you see is really happening. I don’t use photography in that way, I think more about my photographs with the rules of painting, but maybe sometimes I’m unsuccessful and I fail in that.