NOBUYUKI KOBAYASHI

Born in 1970 and from Yokoze-town, Saitama prefecture. After independent of 1993, I have been shooting mainly portrait and fashion photography for advertisement and magazines. But from 2001, I learned the basics of fine arts and alternative print technique in New York. Hosokawa-paper (Japanese traditional paper) is utilized for the support of the print. I have combined the Hosokawa-paper with platinum palladium print, which has succeeded in creating a graceful and unique atmosphere within my work.

Since 2005, I have had opportunities to present my work in various European countries as well as in Taiwan. Then, the number of the audience mobilization with the private exhibition holding of 2014 recorded 15000. In the ensuing year too, I displayed it in 8 places of 5 countries. The style attracts many people and favorable reception at home and abroad. Authored works is "Portrait of Nature ~Myriads of Gods~

myriads of gods

Portrait of Nature ~ Myriads of Gods

Since ancient times, Japanese people have built culture and values of their own through loving, honoring and making the effort to coexist with nature. However, since the Meiji restoration or rapid economic growth after the World War, I feel that peoples’ faith in nature and their belief that myriads of god dwell in all things is fading. Even from the recent raised voices of environmental damages, it is obvious if we look for its origins, that this is because of loss of respect and heartfelt appreciation of nature. The custom is almost completely forgotten now, that water is a source of life, and mountains as well as rocks and trees are dwelled by gods.

Where did the coexisting living go- when nature allowed humans to live, and humans cared with respect to sustaining nature?

Where has the value and aesthetics of Japanese people gone, often presented by ‘gracefulness’?

Now, the world is urged to find ways by which to achieve both economic growth and protection of the environment, and the perspectives of nature rooted in Japan, may provide a clue – and it is while embracing such thoughts and facing nature, that this work was born.

Also, by discovering gods in these objects that are in front of me, those landscapes are now reborn as work. Even as we live in the time of destruction and development, they are untouched by those ‘hands’ and in an it could even be said that our ancestors may have seen the same landscape and might have discovered gods in the same place. Thinking this way, I feel the flow of continuous and majestic time. I even have the sense of closeness.

That is why, I continue to capture them.

Because I believe that this should be told and passed on to the next generation who may share a similar sense of feeling to mine.

Therefore, I print, using Platinum, which is the most stable metal on earth, apply on Washi produced in the same way today since one thousand three hundred years ago. It is believed that, with the special characteristics of both, it will not cause any secular change thus these prints will live for thousands of years.

To express this in a different way, the landscapes that were seen by our ancestors, brought joy to myself, living in this contemporary era and by capturing them, it is an act of passing it on to people living one thousand years later.

In a world after a hundred years, two hundred years, or even one thousand years, I hope that abundant nature still exists and by looking at the same objects, they will feel the same joy – this is my wish.