Dana LaMonda is a photographer and an artist who manages to capture images that only she is able to find through her very personal and upright way of working.

In her work and projects of the recent years she has submerged herself in a remarkable way into the social groups she is seeking to portray. A wonderful example can be found in a recent project,

The Velvet Zone, where she became part of the ‘family’ of a brothel.
This form of human research, intensely participatory and involving a great deal of sympathizing in the project matter, is essential for Dana LaMonda in creating a natural atmosphere where her subjects and their respective environment are released of any reserve. In this way it is not the décor or the setting which is captured or portrayed for the outside world, but the unfiltered inner workings of an unusual biotope.

Dana LaMonda has a unique approach to her work which gives it the unmistakable Dana brand. Most of all though, it is her candid frankness and sincere curiosity in people with which she is able to reveal social environments to the viewer that would normally remain undeniably closed.

Dana LaMonda creates opportunities for us to enter and glance into worlds through the trust and confidence she herself has gained. She does so without in any way abashing that trust. Her work radiates from the inside out and vice versa.

 

Marie Jeanne de Rooij

December 2017