NONA LIMMEN: DARK ESCAPISM
The Salem Art Gallery
September 7–December 10, 2022
In her experimental dark art photography, Nona Limmen channels the darker side of life by painting gloomy fairytales with the camera’s lens. The Beverwijk born studied psychotherapist plays with melancholic symbolism, dark folklore, occultism, and shadow work, sometimes profoundly unnerving, sometimes inviting and alluring – her range widely varying by combining soft and ethereal beauty with barren landscapes. Nona Limmen’s haunting protagonists are creatures born of folklore, mythology, and the collective unconscious. Her photos capture them as they dance along the borders between our world and theirs. Perhaps, if you approach with just the right offering, one of them might grant you a glimpse or even passage into their realm, part dream and part nightmare.
Her photos serve as liminal zones that draw you in and make the world around you fall away as you’re drawn through a portal of her own creation. Whether in dramatic black and white or vividly artworks tinted in purples and reds, the Amsterdam-based photographer offers you a glimpse into a world nebulously bordering our own, a realm where the visible melts into the unseen. But be warned. There's no return from where you are going.