Growing up a tomboy on a rural farm in Pennsylvania, little Anja Keister yearned to live the glamorous life like the drag queens and cabaret performers she saw on television and in the movies. Her discovery of the burlesque and pin-up world helped her find an outlet for her ideas and dreams.

Drawing from her background in performance art and stage productions, Anja Keister sets out to create original burlesque acts that explore the ideas of beauty, femininity, gender roles and the cult of pop culture. Combining spectacular theatricality with the bizarre, Anja thrives in the New York neo-burlesque scene, pushing audiences to question their own definitions of what is beautiful, what is sexy, and what makes them uncomfortable. Always a fan of the beauty of decay and deconstruction, Anja Keister hopes to change herself and the world with every garment she removes.

As a pin-up model, Miss Keister tries to take the traditional glamor of the retro and vintage world and push it past what is appropriate, then garnish it with a twist of humor. Using the spunk and spirit of Gil Elvgren style pin-ups, Anja likes to subvert the look by adding strange and off-putting aspects, maintaining a semblance of the classic style but augmenting it with touches of the unexpected.

Anja Keister believes that an artist's role should be to make the viewer reevaluate their world and hopes she can do that for you!