The busts

CATEGORY: portraits
CLIENT: Toneelhuis

Written by Karen Chin @ BRANSCH BRANSCH artist Frieke Janssens photographed the Toneelhuis theater group in a style harking back to Hollywood portraiture of the Golden Age. This ongoing series of portraits of actors and directors are for theater posters and website to help announce new performances at the Bourla, a marvelously restored 19th-century building in Antwerp, Belgium. Frieke was inspired by the sensuous light and striking gaze typical of portraits of legendary actors like Marlon Brando, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Errol Flynn – perhaps you see an older version of Marilyn Monroe in the portrait of Gilde De Bal. Special emphasis was placed on faces, hence the decision to put the subjects on a pedestal, creating individual busts devoted to each troupe member. The stylized busts placed in a setting inspired the attic space of the Bourla theater were Frieke’s way to give viewers something to look at and dream about, rather than capture a straight reportage moment of a performance, or the standard black and white theater headshot.