Ida Pimenoff - Perhaps Loneliness Does Not Exist After All

After a painful loss of a loved one, photographer Ida Pimenoff came to realize it was time for her to turn her gaze at what she had, rather than what was no longer there. It was time to focus on presence, not on absence. With this realization in mind, she started to make portraits, both direct and tender, of all the people she loved. Perhaps Loneliness Does Not Exist After All is a personal and intimate autobiographical story of survival. It is a story about rebuilding oneself and one’s life again after most of it has been shattered to pieces. In the book, the black and white portraits of the artist’s closest people are combined with more symbolic color images of memories, dreams and the transient beauty of everyday life. All together the book forms a kind of a journey. Or one might also call it a diary, consisting of images rather than of text. This personal journey and the process of recovery can be traced throughout the book: from the melancholy and piercingly painful images in the beginning to the brightness and hopefulness of the last pages.