Artist Tyler Shields on Creating Art and Controversy

I first became interested in Tyler Shields as an artist while watching the short-lived series Mrs. Eastwood & Company on E!, in which he frequently appeared as the boyfriend of Francesca Eastwood — Clint Eastwood’s daughter with Frances Fisher. Together, Shields and his now ex-muse were documented creating art that seemed tailor-made for me, a then-26-year-old aspiring fashion editor.

Glamorous, provocative, and rooted in style, Shields’ work spoke to me like nothing I had ever seen. His now-famous “Mouthful,” for instance, which sold at Sotheby’s in February for roughly $30,000 and featured different shots of various red-lipsticked mouths — Francesca’s among them — was as high fashion as any spread I’d ever seen in Vogue and something I longed to have on my own wall.

Even more intriguing to me was the moment in which Shields photographed Francesca chain-sawing — and then setting on fire — a $100,000 Hermès Birkin for part of his “Fashion Kills” series. “This is a $100,000 bag, but we’re talking about a bag,” he explained on episode. “It’s no different from a bag you get at the grocery store. You carry shit in it.”

While the moment caused an uproar, with many criticizing Shields for destroying such an expensive item with so many in need, I found the outrage ironic, as he was essentially making a thought-provoking commentary about our society’s obsession with insanely high-priced material goods and silently urging us to break free from them.

But, as Shields tells me while displaying his artwork at the Samuel Lynne Gallery pop-up at Centaur Interiors in Chicago on Saturday, September 7, any hullabaloo surrounding his work, of which there has been plenty since, doesn’t really phase him — he lives with few regrets when it comes to his career.

“I think it’s tricky when you live in a place where you can look back and regret things, you know? We don’t have the ability to time travel, so there’s no point,” he says.

And besides, Shields tells me, “I don’t have any problem with a shitstorm. Like, so what? Sometimes you just gotta make a shitstorm!”

Shields created something more akin to a shit hurricane in 2017, when he snapped a now-infamous photograph of comedian Kathy Griffin holding a bloodied head of a dummy that bore resemblance to President Donald Trump. Griffin later apologized for the picture, telling Nightline in July 2018 that she thought it might be her undoing. “I thought there was a really good chance my career was over,” she said at the time.

As for Shields? He says he can take the backlash. “When photographers ask me, ‘What’s the hardest part about being a photographer?’ it’s not taking the pictures, cause that’s fun,” he shares. “It’s not coming up with the ideas, ‘cause … you could take a picture of a tree and people will like it. It’s can you take it if you get the heat? Can you handle it if you feel like the world is bearing down on you? I know a lot who can’t, that could not handle that … I can.”

Criticism, of course, is not the only challenge Shields faces as a photographer.

Shields will go to great lengths to get his shot. He recalls once being forced to hold his breath for five minutes straight when he was accidentally sucked down into a whirlpool while taking a photo underwater. Another time, he carried someone two miles on his back through the desert in 110-degree heat. And then, there was that time he flew a plane. “It just depends on what you think is crazy,” he says with a shrug.

The former professional skater has also had to get creative when his subjects don’t cooperate — like the time the lead singer of a band he was shooting for a magazine cover passed out drunk in the middle of their shoot.  “Literally, he was unconscious,” Shields remembers. “In my quick thinking, I put sunglasses on him, and I had them prop him up, Weekend at Bernie’s style.”

For the most part, however, the subjects Shields works with — Lindsay Lohan and American Horror Story’s Emma Roberts and Evan Peters among them (“They’re all great,” he assures) come prepared.

After all, as the filmmaker has proven time and time again, anything can happen during a Tyler Shields shoot.  A-list celeb can quickly find themselves in an unexpected scenario, perhaps covered in raw meat, à la Mischa Barton circa 2011, or war paint, like the cast of Revenge in 2012.

For the most part, Shields tells me his inspiration comes from things he’s lived. “A lot of [it] just comes from my life — a movie I saw when I was a kid, or just things I experienced or things I’ve seen,” he says.

Take his 2018 take on the famous “Mona Lisa” (a personal favorite of mine). “When I was a kid, I saw the “Mona Lisa” and I was like, ‘Oh man, it would be awesome if she had red lipstick on … and then I painted it on it.”

Yet while his newer works, like his 2019 black-and-white series featuring “The Lady and the Lion,”are still very much in line with the artwork I first fell in love with — fashion-forward, thought-provoking, and powerful — Shields says his methods have come a long way from those early days. “It’s evolved tremendously,” he says. “The way that I approach everything, the way that I execute everything, it’s all very different, which is all part of the fun. … When you start out, you don’t have everything, and you’ve gotta’ do it with whatever you have. And then, as you build and it grows, you have more access, so then the ideas can expand. I think the trouble is when the ideas don’t expand for people and they just keep doing the same thing forever … that just doesn’t work anymore.”

Shields, meanwhile, is anything but stagnant, with plans to expand his artistic reach even further with more galleries and more shows in the coming year. “I’m gonna start making movies, which will be fun,” he shares.

And as for his photos? “I’ve got a new series now that’s gonna come out next year.”

Which of Shields’ pieces is your favorite? Tell me in the comments below! 

Xo, Nicole