Michael Bailey-Gates grew up in Rhode Island where he worked an after school job at a photo studio.[3][4] He continued on to receive his BFA in Photography from the School of Visual Arts in 2015.
Work
Photographer
In 2013 Bailey-Gates met photographer Ryan McGinley and became a protégé of the artist.[5] Bailey-Gates later debuted his body of work "A Horse The Rough" with New York Times in 2018. The pictures referenced early motion-study photographs "without the gender norms traditional to classical portraiture".[6]
In 2021, Bailey-Gates’ first solo exhibition, "A Glint In The Kindling", was hosted at The Ravestijn Gallery, in Amsterdam.[7][8] Chantal McStay, in a New York Times Style Magazine review of the exhibition, stated the photographs on display "evoked the aesthetics of classical portraiture as they upend conventions of gender and beauty."[9] This body of work was published as the inaugural book by Pinch publishing in 2021.[10]
In 2021 Bailey-Gates was the subject of homophobic backlash after releasing a self portrait commissioned for a Valentino campaign.[11] The brand's designer, Pierpaolo Piccioli, condemned the backlash over the Valentino image.[12]
Horace D. Ballard, in Aperture Magazine, describes Bailey-Gates’ photography as redefining traditional portraiture through "queer, neoclassical portraits" and notes his specialties in portraiture, studio and tableau photography.[13]
Bailey-Gates was listed as W Magazine's 10 young artists to follow in 2018.[18] and in 2020 he was named one of Cultured magazines Young artists 2020.[19]