Exhibition of Contemporary Photographs

This is to invite you to an Exhibition of Contemporary Photographs at http://www.imagery.in/gallery.html
The show is still on at Chaithanya Art Gallery in Cochin, Kerala, southern India.
I would greatly appreciate a few words from you on my work.
Criticism is always welcome

Review of Unni Pulikkal’s work by The New Indian Express News Paper

Presenting different perspectives

The New Indian Express news service
First Published : 14 Sep 2009 12:02:00 AM IST

KOCHI: A fine blend of photographic technique and aesthetic imagination. The result? Photographs with a pictorial quality. Each photo taken by Unnikrishnan Pulikkal displayed at the exhibition titled ‘Rhapsody in Abstraction’ is a painting in itself. Leaves, flowers and other aspects of nature acquire artistic appeal when captured in microscopic detail. Not surprising, as the photographer, who is incidentally a practising doctor, has a background in fine arts.

“Fine art photography is something which has been experimented with a lot in the West, though not so much in India,” says Dr Unnikrishnan.’The Fern Abstract’ thus has a single fern leaf surrounded by moss and weeds. When captured in black and white, the photograph aquires a surreal quality.Most of the photographs are displayed in sets, which form a sequence. ‘The Ripple Abstract’ for instance, has a set of eight photographs, each of which is a study of ripples in the water shot at close quarters.All the shots were captured in a span of ten minutes, with varying exposure and colour combination. “The art of presenting different perspectives, that is the crux of my work,” says the photographer. ‘Flower in Motion Sequence’ depicts a series of small, bright orange flowers floating in the water, against the green leaves and the black water and has a sensuous quality. ‘Evening Abstract’ and the ‘Birth of a Poem’ are experiments with colour, or rather experiments with light.Most of the frames have been shot during travel or from the photographer’s own garden. “Only very few have been captured on purpose, the Bird Sequence being one,” he says.The sequence has a set of four photographs of birds, one of a real bird, the second of a clay bird, the third of a black and white photo of a glum looking cement vulture, and the fourth a caged macaw against the backdrop of a painting of a family obviously on the way to a picnic. The upbeat mood of the family presents a stark contrast to that of the caged bird, which has an expression of wide-eyed terror.The photos have been printed on 100% cotton archival paper, using pigment- based ink, such that they will last for more than a century, without losing the original colour or saturation.

Review of Unni Pulikkal’s work by The Hindu (India’s National News paper since 1878)

Where distinct frames form a perfect sequence

One expects a photographic exhibition to be essentially mimetic, or a composition really or an interpretation of a visual element that the photographer has encountered. ‘Rhapsody in Abstraction’, an exhibition of photographs by Dr. Unni Krishnan Pullikal is on Chaitanya Art Gallery. The exhibition concludes on September 30.

But with ‘Rhapsody in Abstraction’, Dr. Unni Krishnan Pulikkal turns painter-photographer. Most of the photographs at the exhibition are in sequences, of course there are individual frames too. But some of the most striking photographs are part of the sequences. These photographs seem to assume another dimension, they become philosophical, meditations really. ‘Sound of the universe’, therefore, a sequence of four photographs is contemplative. A combination of still life and nature photography, there are droplets of water on a tendril, poised to drop and then there is a bell. All those lectures on Keats’ ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ come rushing back. The photographs manage to capture and convey silence and sound, the conflicting dualities of time and timelessness are presented photographically. The images, in that sense are constructed. “I work on an idea, and then consciously make an image. The pictures are based on specific concepts,” says Pulikkal.

The conversation then veers to the very nature of photography, of the photographs on show. This is not photography but fine art photography, “fine art photography is the use of photography as a medium to create a work of art. It is different from photojournalism in that sense,” Pulikkal elaborates. Photography then ceases its documentary role and becomes a painting. Inspiration came in the form of Ansel Adams one of the pioneers of fine art photography in the 40s and 50s.

Composite story
In the photographs time zones, the real and the unreal, geography all merge to form one uniform whole. As is evident in ‘The Bird Sequence’, photographs taken at different times, in different places merge to form a composite story. Pulikkal started out with painting as hobby, and then moved on to fine art photography via nature photography. That exposure to nature photography, Better Photography magazine voted him among the top 10 wildlife photographers in India in 2007, he acknowledges has given him that keen eye or the inner third when it comes to see the potential of a naturally occurring scene.

At times, as any passionate photographer would know, the photographs take enormous amounts of patience and persistence for instance, the sequence ‘Ripple Abstract’ where nine shots have been selected from around 20 shots to tell the story. Each of the photographs or sequences have been thought of and composed like an artist would a painting.

Dr. Pulikkal is a paediatrician who practises in Kodali (Thrissur). He is member and associate of Royal Photographic Society, United Kingdom and is also the founder director of Butterfly Art Foundation, an organisation that promotes visual arts. He has exhibited his photographs of butterflies at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

SHILPA NAIR ANAND