NEW YORK, June 2026 — On June 18, 2026, artist Yana Lande will launch LIMELIGHT with an exclusive inaugural salon at Civic Hall. The evening marks the public debut of a multidisciplinary cultural platform, dedicated to women whose vision shapes the world.
LIMELIGHT transforms traditional portraiture into an exploration of presence itself. Rather than celebrating public recognition or status, the project asks a different question: What remains when identity, title, and reputation are stripped away, leaving only the force of an individual presence?
The series consists of monumental portraits created through Lande’s distinctive process of layering lime over large-scale photographic prints. The resulting works exist in a state of tension between revelation and concealment. Faces emerge through translucent surfaces, inviting viewers to look beyond likeness and engage with something less tangible yet more enduring.
“Today’s culture is obsessed with attention,” says Lande. “I wanted to create a project about presence. Presence is quieter, but it is ultimately what transforms people, institutions, and societies. The women in LIMELIGHT are not presented through conventional likeness. Their features dissolve, while their presence becomes stronger.”
The project’s title draws from the dual meaning embedded in the word limelight. Historically, limelight referred both to a form of stage illumination created through heated quicklime and to the state of public visibility.
Lande reinterprets both meanings through a material language rooted in preservation and transformation. Lime has long been used to protect architectural surfaces and safeguard frescoes beneath layers of time. In LIMELIGHT, it becomes both medium and metaphor, simultaneously obscuring and revealing the image beneath.
