Instagram story viewer> @_cometalktome_> Tagged

Linda Westin

@_cometalktome_

25.1K

followers

1069

following

Experimental - Stockholm
In the middle of the forest there's an unexpected clearing which can only be found by those who have gotten lost -Tranströmer

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

Today The Art of the Unknown is released into the world! (For North America, anyway, I believe the pub date for the UK is two days from now.) This freaky, phantasmagoric artbook was a joy to write from its nebulous beginnings to its equally inscrutable end, and I hope you have as much fun reading and exploring it as I did writing it.

Many, many thanks to all of the artists who permitted me to include your fabulous artworks; there are too many of you to tag here, but I treasure all of you so incredibly much! Thank you too, to all of you who read my blog posts and magazine essays, who have my previous books on your shelves, and who support my writing in all the ways that you do. You encouragement is a constant bolster and buoy to my dark little heart. And my dark little heart is quite full today!

If you have ordered a copy of The Art of the Unknown, please share it all over the place and feel free to tag me everywhere that you do! Please too, leave me bunches of reviews, even if all you say is “dang man I liked this book!” Every little bit helps, and I want this weird, wild, wily booger of a book to do quite well!

178

17

The world we navigate daily is only the palest precipice at the edge of, well...everything.

Beneath, beyond, between it all lie chasms upon corridors upon catacombs of spatial marginalia we have failed to notice or chosen not to see: the vast, unmeasured wilderness beneath our feet, the vaporous spirit world peering from beyond, the humming, thrumming space between dreams, the distance between newborn and dying stars.

I assembled a companion playlist to my new book The Art of the Unknown, and it sounds like this: a shimmering sidereal lullaby, jazz noir bleeding into a pulsating wound of ominous dread, the Stendhal syndrome scored for strings, the ritualistic choir of the body in extremis as site of suffering and ceremony, the echoing reverb of palindromic mirror worlds, the incantatory clocklessness of Afrofuturist jazz. It contains a ballroom that survives the dissolving shipwreck of memory, electronic music built from pure sine waves for a universe in its first three minutes, before matter and light separated, the moment before anything became anything, and twenty-one minutes of slow electronic drift that pools like November fog in an abandoned stairwell. A trombone played in an underground cistern by seeping stone seraphim. A coastal field recording that captures moonlight shadows creeping slow.

A sonic curation for entire worlds — worlds beneath the skin on our bones and the lightless bottom of the ocean, beyond the final named star and the glittering edge of heaven, between the infinite and the unbearably intimate shadow and the soul.

Link to my 3+ hour playlist BENEATH BEYOND BETWEEN in my bio. Art by @_cometalktome_

51

1

I try really hard not to read reviews of my books because I believe reviews are for readers, not authors, and what people have to say about my books is kinda none of my business! But! Curiosity overcame me, and I just had to check and see if there was even a single early review for The Art of the Unknown (pub date 9/1) out there in the world...and there is! And it’s pretty great! I have the reviewer’s permission to share it, so I put my extremely amateur Canva skills to work and tried to make it pretty, heheheh. I have copied it below as well, and many thanks to @lalaisalwaysreading for the incredibly thoughtful review.

☆꧁✬◦°˚°◦..◦°˚°◦✬꧂☆

This was such an absorbing little dive into the strange. It feels like wandering through someone’s personal collection of oddities and hidden corners, and the way each piece of art is paired with a short reflection works really well. The artwork is honestly my favorite part. There’s so much variety, and a lot of it was completely new to me, which made the whole thing even more fun to move through.

A few sections were less interesting for me, but honestly the unevenness weirdly works here. It’s a book you drift through, picking up bits of history, weird facts, and unexpected connections along the way. I enjoyed learning new things while also just soaking in the visuals.

I wanted a little more depth in a few places, but overall it’s a beautifully curated look at the uncanny and the offbeat, and I really enjoyed it.

☆꧁✬◦°˚°◦..◦°˚°◦✬꧂☆

If you like:

✔️ 𝚋𝚎𝚊𝚞𝚝𝚒𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚐𝚎 𝚊𝚛𝚝𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔
✔️ 𝚚𝚞𝚒𝚎𝚝, 𝚎𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎 𝚗𝚘𝚗𝚏𝚒𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗
✔️ 𝚊𝚛𝚝 + 𝚖𝚒𝚌𝚛𝚘 𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚢𝚜
✔️ 𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚘𝚍𝚍𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚌𝚞𝚛𝚒𝚘𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚒𝚎𝚜
✔️ 𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚎𝚒𝚛𝚍 𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚕𝚎 𝚏𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚜
✔️ 𝚜𝚘𝚏𝚝, 𝚞𝚗𝚌𝚊𝚗𝚗𝚢 𝚟𝚒𝚋𝚎𝚜

#theartoftheunknown #esotericart #weirdart #artbooks #selizabeth

30

2

Last night, in a sleepless delirium of fever, it occurred to me that I have a book coming out in four months’ time and I am out here posting about dumb personal stuff like a gormless chump — when I should be hyping up my newest artsy fartsy book offering!

So. Are YOU drawn to the art and imagery at the edges of things? The unexplained? The esoteric? The forces that persist just beyond the threshold of ordinary reality?

Do you find yourself awake at 3am thinking about parallel worlds? Visionary states? Liminal spaces? Cosmic mysteries? Restless souls? Forgotten knowledge? Sacred cycles? Corporeal energies?

Friends. FRIENDS. Have I got the book for you.

Introducing The Art of the Unknown: nearly 200 works by artists across the centuries who looked at what science couldn’t explain and picked up a brush. Painting. Photographing. Diagramming. Their way toward forces and phenomena that defy comprehension.

But WAIT. There’s more.

For the low, low price of whatever your local bookseller is charging, you too can own a visual treasury of the esoteric, the uncanny, and the unexplained. That’s right. It could be yours.

And if you order in the next fifteen minutes ...okay well, you can’t, it’s not out until September, but the preorder link is in my bio and I cannot stress enough how much I would like you to click it.

Call now. Operators are standing by. I am the operator. I am also standing by.

(This unhinged marketing post brought to you by the very busy graphic I made that reminded me of late 80s infomercials for paranormal book collections and psychic hotlines.)

82

3

You’ve seen the cover for The Art of the Unknown: A Visual Treasury of the Esoteric, Uncanny, and Unexplained. Now here’s a peek inside! Hint: the second slide is the first page!

This is my fourth book in the Art in the Margins series and it is, I think, the strangest and most sprawling of the lot. Cosmic mysteries, hidden watchers, liminal spaces, restless souls, visionary states, forgotten knowledge. Nearly 200 artworks from artists across the centuries who spent their lives investigating the ineffable, bearing witness to the impossible, and attempting to give form to the inexpressible

For those of you who are new here: I’m S. Elizabeth, Florida-based author, blogger, and magazine columnist behind this account, deeply immersed in the world of art, music, fashion, and perfume, exploring these subjects through the lens of horror, the supernatural, and existential reflection. I write about anxiety, grief, and death. About romanticizing your life and also about the absolute devastation of being alive. The extraordinary, the marvelous, the unsettling, the darkly beautiful, the luminously strange.

And I have to credit @by_victoriamier for inspiring this format — her meet the author posts are always so beautifully done. Go look at everything she does, immediately.

And also maybe preorder my book!

Art on grid includes Virgo Paraiso, Pascal Dagnan- Bouvier, Wenzel Hablik, Richard Bober, Francisco Goya, and Anna Mond. Cover art by Linda Westin.
#theartoftheunknown #esotericart #weirdart #artbooks #selizabeth

133

7

COVER REVEAL TIME!!

The Art of the Unknown: A Visual Treasury of the Esoteric, Uncanny, and Unexplained is my fourth book, out September 1st from Frances Lincoln/Quarto, and it grew directly from years of frustration at people captioning things as “artist unknown” and shrugging at mystery instead of leaning into it, and a deep, abiding belief that wonder is one of the most incredible aspects of being human. Also Richard Bober (iykyk.)

The front cover is Linda Westin’s (@_cometalktome_ ) staggeringly sublime work. Infrared photography revealing colors that exist beyond human sight. A shadowy Swedish forest where the branches create a perfect oculus. A lush, kaleidoscopic vortex of a thing that feels less like a photograph of a forest and more like what a forest dreams about itself.

The back cover is @nonalimmen, whose photographs arrive like transmissions from memory or dream, impossible to recount and equally impossible to forget.

I’m sharing the full story of the what and the why of this book on my blog today. Link in bio.

I hope you’ll consider preordering The Art of the Unknown wherever you preorder books from! Preorders are super important so help a ghoul out, y’all!

#theartoftheunknown #esotericart #weirdart #artbooks #selizabeth

485

64

Linda Westin.
Portraits of the woods.
📸 @_cometalktome_

15

1

Snart gör vi det igen, för sista gången i vår releseturné för vinylutgivningen av Orgelfärger, vi spelar hela albumet från början till slut. Som final på festligheterna blir det till drömsk stop motion film av Linda Westin. Var? Jo, på Reimersholme hotel, Fredag den 21 november klockan åtta. Välkommen!

https://reimersholmehotel.se/event/sagor-swing/

#sagorochswing
#cometalktome
#cooprecords
#reimersholmehotel

108

7

It's no secret that we're big fans of trees at House of Hackney; not just for their beauty, but for their ancient wisdom and generous gift of life.

Bring the majesty of the forest home with our collection of tree prints, and read more about these remarkable beings and our innate connection with them in @thelibraryofesoterica's The Sephiroth, from Plant Magick, available to read now for free at the link in bio.

Plant Magick artwork, 'Illuminated Dendrology' by Linda Westin.

#houseofhackney

3

11

“A group show”
There’s no clear theme here.
I just followed the feeling.
Sometimes it’s the color. Sometimes it’s the mood.
Sometimes it’s the way an image makes you pause.
1- @lenamacka
2- @kristian_touborg
3- @salman.toor
4- @nopattern
5- @pennydavenport
6- @kate_casanova
7- via @one.perfect.frame
FRITZ THE CAT (1972, Ralph Bakshi)
8- @catherine.mulligan
9- @blodheaven
10- @1924us
11- @ursobairronovo_19
12- @davidshrigley
13- @pierre_knop
14- @alexkyddphoto
15- @minissi___
16- @valchopg
17- @galeriephantom
18- @brdctl
19- @_cometalktome_
20- @watts (curators note)

3

47

Some of the most liked and shared images of 2024.
May 2025 be your inspiring year!

Edit: @vandicla

@deannadikeman
@federicoclavarino
@luvialazo
@giacomobrunelli1
@juan_brenner
@_cometalktome_
@lukasvasilikos
@melissaschriek
@shinnoguchiphotos
@francoisprost
@teryoshi
@sabakhayr
@danaecharalabidou
@barrytalis
@pellecass
@mahaney_mark
@bednarski_photo
@juliagatphotography
@tonydocekal
@danielroblesfotografo
@vikikollerova
@patwack
@_markforbes_
@bronfer
@avionpearce
@kourtneyroy

3

11

Mood: The last Friday the Thirteenth of 2024
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
#ArtStar art: “Liquid Mirrors 7” by Jordan TIberio, “Somewhere In The World 05” by Minjin-Mijoo, “Cosmonaut Ice” by Justin Lister, “Illuminated Dendrology: Introspection” by Linda Westin and “Voyager” by Tom Fabia

3

4