NIKO LUOMA: PICTURES

We are thrilled to present a new series of works by Finnish artist Niko Luoma. Simply called Pictures, the new series came to life during the long and meditative months of 2020 influenced by the bright light of the artist’s studio in Trieste, Italy. 

Starting from his familiar process of recording pure light on negative through multiple exposures, Luoma has taken his process of abstraction even further, manipulating the exposed negative and folding it out of its traditional, previously unquestionable, rectangular shape.

The works can be installed in any direction. In Luoma’s view the works are like circumferences that can be entered from any angle, or folded spaces that combine the two opposite sides to form one unity – like a Möbius strip, the one-sided surface that can be constructed by affixing the ends of a rectangular strip having given one of the ends a one-half twist.

Luoma came to this innovative concept through his recent experimentation with transparencies and their unexpected sculptural dimension. Treating and displaying them as objects, Luoma presented them twisted, bent and projecting shadows. In doing so he placed in the 3-dimensional realm something that is two-dimensional by nature; from this, the subsequent act of folding a negative and then returning it into yet again in the 2-dimensional realm of a print was the birth of Pictures, which pushes the boundaries of photography yet a step further.