"My work is about reduction and repetition, layering ideas of systems and chance. Ultimately, my core interest lies not in the front of the camera but inside of it where the exposure becomes content. " -Niko Luoma
Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery is pleased to present Proximity, its second exhibition of photographer Niko Luoma.
Proximity centers on a recent body of large-scale photographic works called Adaptations. Based on Cubist ideas of visual space, celebrated works from the history of art are broken down into geometries and reassembled using multiple exposures to a negative. These exposures, abstract yet calculated, emulate the use of simultaneous viewpoints found in Cubism.
The artworks of reference, spanning the Baroque to the Modern, have in common a visionary approach to form and perspective. Here we see adapted versions of Velázquez's Las Meninas (1656), Monet's Nymphea (1926) and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso (1910), dynamically rendered as compositions of overlapping planes of color and dimensionality.
Luoma's work embodies both the scientific and unexpected natures inherent in photography. Previous series, Variations on a Standard of Space (2013) and Symmetrium (2010), developed his investigations into the reformulation and abstraction of spatial events. Though dedicated to traditional processes of capturing light to film, his work across two decades has established him as a true innovator of analogue photography.
Niko Luoma (b. 1970) lives and works in Helsinki.He studied at the New England School of Photography, Boston, The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the University of Art and Design, Helsinki. He is a lecturer at the University of Art and Design and an integral part of the Helsinki School. His works have been widely published and exhibited internationally. They are represented in numerous collections, including those of the Finnish National Gallery, the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Danish National Museum of Photography. Among his many received awards and stipends are the recent grant of the Arts Council of Finland (2014) and the William Thuring Award (2013). Luoma is a member of the Union of Artist Photographers, Finland.