Nobu Hozumi

Photography is the image of an object fixed, by optical projection, on a medium-analog or digital-that is sensitive to light. The word photography is derived from two Greek words: photo (phos) and graphis (graphis), photography thus literally means writing with light. The photographic technique thus allows an object or image of the world to be drawn with light. But is this really the case? Nobu Hozumi reminds us that photography can go beyond the concept of merely recording the world and enter the universe of art and the fantastic. In this sense, the artist is clearly talking about photographs that are not photographs. Looking at Nobu's works, we immediately understand what this strange phrase means. The artist's works do not record objective reality, they do not portray images that can be traced back to the everyday world. What we see is anything but. Upside-down worlds, intersecting planes of representation and objects that change their connotations losing, in certain respects, their attachment to the real world. In "City of Emotions," a colorful universe looms before our eyes. What are we observing? We cannot scan a horizon line, we cannot tell if what we see is traceable to the outline of a room or an entire building. Our vision wavers as do our emotions. Tile-covered walls, walls, ceilings, and even dried tree branches are here. Their real features reverberate in this representation but of their wholeness only the form, the outline, has remained. Everything is intersected, everything is of dubious understanding, and our brains keep thinking, ceaselessly producing connections and associations, to no avail. This is not the real. This is not the everyday world.