“In our society, we have very specific expectations about the dichotomy of gender and the roles that each gender should adopt. However, this dichotomy is not an exclusive point of view. I attempt to question this hypothesis by making portraits of men and women whose identities slip out of the norms. Through these portraits, I try to show that there are several ways of living our lives as human beings.” ~ Anne-Sophie Guillet

In ‘Inner Self’, Brussels-based photographer Anne-Sophie Guillet (1987, UK) portrays androgynous people within a minimalistic environment, questioning the dichotomy of gender and the roles that each gender ‘should’ adopt.

In her interview with Fotografia Magazine, Anne-Sophie states that ‘Inner Self’… “is really about human beings. My interest is in issues relating to identity and its construction. Body delineates an individual, it comes to confound itself with the external identity; the one we show to others. It is an observation, the carnal envelope claims itself as a necessary support for the construction of ego and its own identity. The one-to-one that I present invites us to fully educate ourselves on the role, even the importance, of appearances in our relation to each other as much as to ourselves.

In the Inner Self series, the locations are pared down, no elements disturb the images. Only details of a door or stairs stay visible. The subjects are simply styled. They wear plain clothes which allow the spectator to notice the ambiguity of gender that is revealed in each portrait. It is through a refining approach of simplification that the questioning spreads itself in order to go further in complexity.”

Anne-Sophie Guillet was born in 1987 in Oxford,(UK). She graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2013 with an MFA in visual arts/photography. Anne-Sophie lives and works in Brussels. She was awarded the Roger de Conynck/ fondation roi Baudouin prize in 2013 (Belgium) and was laureate of the ‘Proposition d’artistes 2013’ at the Espace photographique Contretype (Belgium).

All photos © Anne-Sophie Guillet : Website | Instagram