Using sophisticated marionette-like figures made of papier-mâché, clothing, material, air-conditioning ducts, metal coils, exhaust pipes, window blinds, and any other imaginable materials, Hanne Tierney animates dramatic stories and performances mostly of her own creation. She manipulates all the figures herself through a highly complex suspended grid system of pulleys and transparent fishing line, which she likens to "playing an instrument." Using a minimal verbal script, Tierney creates the story and characterizations through a range of highly emotive, subtle gestures. Born in Germany, Tierney was apprenticed as a worker in a spinning-wheel factory. At nineteen she moved to the United States to pursue a better life, writing children's stories before turning to designing, creating, and animating her complex sculptural puppets.

Peter Bellamy (born 1954)
Gelatin silver print, 1982
Published summer 1986
Peter Bellamy, from The Artist Project (1982)