Noelle Salaun

Noelle Salaun is a collage, fiber, and performance artist as well as a photographer who has exhibited in New York. Recent exhibitions in New York include Mat Blak, Thomas Hunter Project Space, BASIS Independent, Bertha And Karl Leubsdorf Gallery, Korea Art Forum, Flux Factory, and CUNY Neurodiversity Conference. Her awards include grants from The Mason Lift Scholarship and Creative Sanctum. Noelle has been published by Fruitslice Issue Four: A Fruitslice Survival Guide: Maps, Manuals, and How-To’s, Treasures, published in Art of Nothing Press, Issue Three: Nothing to Write Home, About, Through and Through, Deck of Cards published by Tilted House, When I Leave, published in The Olive Tree Review, Garden Valley, published in the Electronic Gallery, Tilted House Slanted Canvas, FOKUS’s INSIGHT Magazine, and Bloomberg Philanthropies Connects.

With a varied portfolio, Noelle typically expresses herself through forms of bright color which represent tropical climates. Because she feels aesthetics are an important element in art, Noelle often incorporates color in a conceptual manner, such as performance art of using colorful attire and a quilted-artistic table cloth which extends to the wall of a gallery in order to convey a notion of innocence and playfulness. Much like Alice in Wonderland, whether a direct or indirect influence, Noelle often has references to miniaturizing items such as food or houses and even portrays a dilapidated house as if the subject were a fantastical palace neglected over time. 

The collages often contain elements and concepts of altering environments, such as the arctic forming into a mountainous forest or a Savannah merging into a desert. She incorporates text which seems to apply desolation and despair such as ‘and have nowhere to go…and nowhere to turn to…’ Similarly, in Noelle’s photography, the depiction of a dilapidated pink house with pink lights, pink fixtures, and an overgrown unmanicured pink garden also suggests shifting scenes which connotate disrepair and a sense of yearning. Even the fiberworks use patches of patterns to portray what she titles and describes as a self-portrait. Noelle doesn’t only infuse conceptual elements of isolation but also seems to celebrate the theme through forms of color and a heightened sense of aesthetics through pleasant compositions.

Just the Small Things (pictured above) depicts a giant hand pinching a house while inside a classical interior. The variation of the monochromatic interior on the left to the color contained with the hand and house on the right continues to reflect Noelle’s inclination to convey concepts in shifting environments. These conceptual approaches she places in works like Just the Small Things conveys a sense of encroachment onto the comfort levels of the viewer’s psyche regarding relationships to space. 

Noelle Salaun is a complex artist who uses varying techniques of color and contradictory subject matter to communicate psychological impulses and concepts such as entrapment, isolation, playfulness, and even senses of fantasy. Her willingness to use a variety of expressive methods and mediums implies a deeply open minded artist who is not afraid to experiment in order to reveal a deeper understanding and purpose towards environments and image-making. With a sensitivity towards color and conceptual composure which reflects a sense of wit, irony, and willingness for exploration, Noelle Salaun offers rich and nuanced reflections on identity.

https://noellesalaun.com