Rineke Dijkstra
Tia
Tia, 1994
Diptych, 2 C-prints, je 35 x 27 cm
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur, permanent loan, private collection Bern
2006-124-001
b. 1959 (Sittard, NL), lives and works in Amsterdam, NL
Rineke Dijkstra’s portraits of uncertain youth on the beach, along with her series of blood-smeared bullfighters and young mothers catapulted her into world renown in the early 1990s. Dijkstra’s subjects disclose their vulnerability in her pictures, thus intimating the empathetic relationship they have with the photographer. Such is the case with Tia, a double portrait of a young mother. In the picture on the left, she spurns the viewer in a state of complete exhaustion. On the right she is depicted five months later and visibly recovered. With a direct gaze into the camera that is both sincere and shy, she beams with a quiet happiness and affection. Such comparisons by Dijkstra reveal the complexity and the profoundness of the human soul.