American photographer Lily Gavin has carved out a unique space in contemporary photography with her rare way of seeing the world—a vision that goes beyond capturing light to seek what lies behind it, in shadows and interstices where truth emerges before disappearing. Her current exhibition "Innocence" at Kearsey + Gold gallery in London showcases ten images that materialize visions existing only in the mind, offering viewers a window into her interior landscape.

Gavin's journey with photography began unusually early. A photograph exists of her at age two, sitting on the ground holding a Nikon FE and staring into its lens—what she considers a prophetic moment. For her, the camera has never been merely a tool or an object of power, but rather a bridge that allows her to exist in the world while slightly detaching from it to better question its nature.

Her photographic practice rests on a singular alchemy between intuition and refinement. When working outdoors or on film sets, she shoots by instinct, guided more by sensation than concept. In the studio, she constructs thoughtful, almost architectural images, yet the moment of capture remains instinctive, as if photography can only occur in the meeting between intention and surrender. This tension feeds her distinctive style—a blend of spontaneity and depth where the soul surfaces beneath the surface.

Gavin deliberately avoids perfection or seduction in her work. She shuns overly calculated images that are too conscious of themselves, preferring a form of interior harmony and organic sincerity. Whether capturing landscapes, faces, or objects, her photographs consistently return to the essential. She strips away, removes, and scrapes off the superfluous to reach the naked truth of forms, viewing beauty as sacred territory that extends beyond aesthetics to embrace an almost metaphysical dimension.

The invisible profoundly permeates her work. She sees divinity behind things—not as dogma, but as living mystery. Her images invite contemplation of what escapes us: silence, breath, vibration. This creates photography of intimacy, vulnerability, and real presence. Her portraits of pregnant women, for example, capture a strange and otherworldly beauty—the tenuous border between two worlds, between before and after, between life and its appearance.

Influenced in her youth by Robert Frank's "The Americans," Gavin understood early that photography could serve as both testimony and illusion, prism and interpretive gesture. For her, an image can be truer than reality or contradict it entirely. It can freeze a lie or reveal a world, changing how we perceive an event, face, or era.

In her recent work currently presented at Kearsey + Gold in London, the ten images of "Innocence" don't attempt to capture reality but rather to materialize what exists only in the mind. By composing miniature worlds from found objects, natural materials, and frames shaped from clay or raw canvas, she blurs reference points and awakens a form of phenomenological innocence within viewers. Gavin plays with scales and perceptions to transform the smallest detail into sacred territory, with her frames becoming portals to parallel realities where discreet, barely veiled magic emerges.

During an extensive interview, Gavin revealed insights into her creative process and philosophy. When asked about what triggered her passion for photography, she referenced that early image of herself with the camera, describing photography as a tool she has used to interact with and understand the world since childhood. The first time she saw an image appear in a high school darkroom felt "like witnessing a magic trick," she recalled.

Robert Frank and "The Americans" served as her primary early inspiration—the first photographer's complete body of work that truly spoke to her. When asked which photograph she wished she had taken, she immediately cited the famous image of Muhammad Ali posing underwater. Her most recent photograph, taken just minutes before the interview, showed sunflowers and eucalyptus arranged on her kitchen table, captured on her phone.

Gavin finds her pregnancy photographs among her strangest work, noting the beautiful and otherworldly quality of capturing that moment in the final weeks before a child enters the world, "only slightly veiled by the skin of the mother's belly." Regarding project selection, she insists that projects choose her rather than the reverse, with ideas seeming to fall upon her from unclear origins.

The balance between intuition and reflection varies by image type for Gavin. Outdoor and film set work remains purely intuitive, while studio images begin with thought but return to intuition at the moment of capture. She doesn't view photographs as successful or unsuccessful, disliking images that try to sell something or appear overly calculated, since most photography involves exploration. Instead, she seeks visual harmony and completeness regardless of subject matter.

On memorable and timeless images, Gavin notes that we collect every image we've seen in a kind of collective consciousness cabinet. Some images resonate collectively, and timeless ones influence how we perceive the world, affecting us on subliminal levels and returning like memories. In faces, landscapes, and objects, she searches for truth—things stripped of artifice and reduced to their essence and true nature.

Technique can create emotion itself, Gavin believes, citing cyanotypes as an example. Photography often serves as a window into the photographer's soul, where image sincerity becomes apparent almost immediately. She views curiosity as essential—the more curious a photographer, the more interesting their photos tend to be.

For Gavin, beauty represents something sacred that can be experienced visually, though cultural concepts of beauty have become corrupted and limited. As photography is a visual medium, she cannot conceive of photographic beauty without aesthetic elements. Mystery, she says, makes silence visible in photographs.

Working primarily in black and white while loving color, preferring natural light unless shooting at night, Gavin believes color can certainly form narrative. She considers time discussible separately from photography but sees the invisible playing an immense role in her images, with most serving to indicate and reflect on the unseen divinity behind all things.

A photograph can be truer than reality, she argues, questioning the nature of reality itself. Images can absolutely change perception of events, being "full of facts or illusions." Photography cannot be simply defined as testimony or manipulation, existing as something more complex.

Gavin identifies the atomic cloud photograph over Hiroshima as world-changing, while childhood photographs changed her personal world. Early profound images likely came from films, and she notes that once you understand an image represents 1/24th of a second of film, the distinction between photography and cinema becomes less clear. Images of women presented as sexual objects, especially for product sales, anger her.

If choosing one photograph to represent herself, Gavin would select an Irving Penn flower image. Her current "Innocence" exhibition represents what photographing her thoughts might look like—constructed and created images of things that don't exist to the naked eye rather than visible reality.

Recent first experiences include receiving a hug from Amma, known as the hugging saint, where people travel globally and wait hours for the experience. A recurring childhood nightmare remains perfectly visible to her today, representing a key personal image alongside the memory of thinking about it at school the next day.

Gavin claims no life regrets except wasted time, particularly believing most social media time represents precious lost life. Once shared, photographs no longer truly belong to their creators, entering others' minds as shared experiences. Essential photography books include Frank's "The Americans" and Francesca Woodman's "On Being an Angel."

Using childhood cameras including Polaroid and Nikon FE, she now works with Nikon FE, Mamiya RZ 67, and iPhone. Her favorite addiction involves listening to good songs on repeat all day. If her camera could speak, she believes it would say "She knows when to press the button."

Photography serves as a way to process the world, detaching to better observe rather than just experience it, while also reflecting on the world by returning to review it. Major future challenges include losing analog photography's craftsmanship and chemical reactions, particularly darkroom printing. Social media influences photography through quantity over quality.

Given opportunities to photograph historical or contemporary figures, Gavin would choose Prince, Frida Kahlo, Thich Nhat Hanh just before his recent death, or Gena Rowlands. She finds actors particularly interesting to photograph due to their relationship with the present moment. If photography could capture emotion as well as images, she would want it to transmit vulnerability.

With an interdimensional portal, her first photograph would show Earth from a distance. If her camera were a superhero, its secret power would bring healing and confidence to everyone she photographs. For a futuristic invention illustration, she would wear an invisibility cloak, leaving no one in the photograph.

For new currency imagery, she would photograph the material from which the bill itself is made. Asked about potentially career-ruining photographs, she claims nothing comes to mind but believes describing such an image would be as damaging as taking it.

To create a masterpiece from an ordinary object's history, Gavin would choose butter's story from origins to present, noting her French mother's influence and their love of French butter, referencing the 1875-1885 still life "Mound of Butter." She finds Mexico the most photogenic city.

On divinity, Gavin states that God exists in everything you photograph, firmly rejecting selfies with the divine. Her dream dinner would include closest friends for peaceful, warm meals, or children for their unfiltered entertainment. Maurizio Cattelan's "Comedian"—a banana taped to a gallery wall—best represents the current world state in her view.

The essential thing people should know about Gavin is that she cares deeply about her subjects. Her final word in the interview was simply "Love." The "Innocence" exhibition continues at Kearsey + Gold gallery at 19 Cork Street, London through December 13, 2025, offering viewers an intimate glimpse into this remarkable photographer's unique vision of the invisible made visible.