Portraits
About
Born in the Netherlands and educated in Amsterdam, Thea Anema graduated cum laude from the prestigious Rietveld Academie where she studied fashion design. After school she moved to Paris and ended up in New York where she founded her own label and worked for various renowned fashion brands including her own. She then went on to become a senior design professor at Pratt Institute. For fifteen years she was vice president of design for a household brand and many of its subsidiaries.
In 2016, Theodora woke up in a Trump-elected America and realized life was too short. Already a seasoned world traveler (she was backpacking in Afghanistan at age 18 and her work and wanderlust had made her a frequent visitor to the far East for many years) she made a big and very conscious decision — step away from corporate America, relocate a good portion of the year in Bali where her daughter attends the Green School and enjoy life to the fullest. She is lucky enough to carve out a life where she can divide her time between New York, Amsterdam and Indonesia.
A constant creative, she was soon searching for a new challenge when she picked up photography. Her world travels have always fueled her fascination with the intricacies of different cultures, habits and inhabitants. She started to get to know all the friendly faces in her Balinese neighborhood and began asking if she could photograph these people she passed and waved to every day on her morning walks. In these short, treasured interactions she began witnessing the hardships, joy, pain and life experience quite literally written all over their faces.
This “beauty of authenticity” became an obsession after a lifelong career in the youth-obsessed, air-brushed world of the fashion industry where wrinkles and aging have no place.
On her regular trips to Bali Thea has made it a habit to get to know one new beautiful face each day.
A Word From The Photographer
“When you photograph a face, you photograph the soul behind it” -Jean Luc Godard.
This truly resonates with me as there is always the quest for that additional “je ne sais quoi”.
I have always been fascinated by real life and the various cultures exposed to while traveling.
This evolved into an obsession with faces after realizing that we hardly see true identities anymore considering today’s preoccupation with perfection.
Our fixation with flawlessness in today’s world, where wrinkles rapidly become obsolete, where young girls aspire to emulate the superficial life of certain celebrities, makes me frightened for the future. I am afraid that in about fifty years, we will only sporadically spot true identities.
When we are born, we all look similarly. We all have eyes, nose, ears and cute little chubby cheeks pretty much in the same place.
We are a blank canvas with perfect features ready to experience the reality of existence.
This transitions as we mature and become exposed to the cruel reality of the cards we have been dealt.
Not till then does our true individuality become visible in what our faces project.
The structural makeup of our skin, skull and muscles become unique, enabling our personalities to shine through, in facial definitions.
I am intrigued by the intricacies of real life, the sheer rawness we read in people's expressions showing us happiness, hardship, suffering, joy — this is exactly what real life is about.
This raw humanity is what I try to capture in my portraits.
Having enjoyed a lifelong career in the fickle and frequently frivolous world of fashion, between Amsterdam Paris and primarily New York, I found the ever present, habitually expected facade, frankly quite exhausting.
I came from a world where you will endure being chastised for wearing last season’s shoes!
A world of “pretend”.
This facade is for pure survival in a world where we are consumed by the perception of others.
This is not real life.
This should not be our reality.
Most of us have built up high walls around us to protect our essentially damaged selves, frightened of further destruction, therefore at times unable to make true connections.
Yet for the people I encounter while I make portraits, the reverse rings true.
There seems to be little concept of invisible walls.
They display their true selves, which is notably compelling as well as captivating.
When I pursue to make one’s portrait, I strive to approach them in the most humble way possible.
Trying to gain their trust by carrying a big smile and always taking off my sunglasses, but it is still undeniably not without its challenges and I am often met with reluctance.
Other times these interactions can be endearing, comical, affectionate, friendly or just plain wonderful, demonstrating a mutual respect.
And this last aspect is what I am after, making a simple connection with other real human beings.