Words - imagery.in : Unni Krishnan Pulikkal Photography

Light,
my light,
the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!
Photo-Graphis. Photo-Graphy. Photography. Greek for Light Writing. The embodiment of the magic union of Art and Science. The physical manifestation of the All Seeing Eye. And to whom does that eye belong? Unni Krishnan Pulikkal, the man behind the camera? The One who chooses the precise moment to see, to point and to capture? Or the One to whom the image is shown, for whom the emotion of response is a sharp suck of breath or a quiet moment of closed-eyed contemplation?
Ah, the light dances, my darling,
at the centre of my life;
the light strikes, my darling,
the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild
laughter passes over the earth.
Sunlight sparkles upon still waters. The dewdrop’s eye rests on a bent leaf. A butterfly’s wing kisses softly. Light dances through Nature. Unni Krishnan Pulikkal follows camera in hand. The Light is his Path and guides his Journey. He is given vision to observe, awareness to sense, quiet to understand. He does so, deliberately, making each image a sacred moment of commune between himself, his God and their Natural World.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.
The Butterfly is Unnikrishnan’s symbol. It adorns the walls of his home, the dashboard of his car, the necklace surrounding his wife’s slender neck. He has chosen this delicate creature to embody the transience of Life and the fragility of Art. Through his camera and calm demeanor, he has collected thousands of specimens, yet unlike the lepidopterists with his net, Unnikrishnan leaves each as he finds it, free and unfettered, basking in the warm Keralan sunlight.
The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.
Unnikrishnan walks in silent grace. A single leaf poised delicately on a moss covered dark grey stone waits reverently. Unnikrishnan stops, bows appropriately and asks the blessing of the moment. The moment is a communion with the Great Spirit, the Eternal Over Soul which has granted him the gift of recognition. The image is before him. The moment waits. His calm demeanor senses the reverence of the space and time that surrounds them both. He takes a photograph. The moment, the essence of that moment is captured, preserved, rendered. We see what he sees. We feel what he feels. We hear the silence he hears and the emptiness of thought he experiences. The photograph of a leaf and stone becomes a touchstone with something all of us have experienced, yet so very few are able to relive or remember. Unnikrishnan has done so in colors, providing us the common denominator for a universal language that we share and understand.
Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling,
and gladness without measure.
The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad.
Unnikrishnan Pulikkal’s photographs invite us to journey with him. We see the Earth, Air, Wind, Water and Fire that is the stuff of us all. We see common objects and the smallest of creatures raised to the height of reverence by an inquiring and observant eye. We are guided by his respect for Nature as well as for Mankind. Through his photographs we are shown the universe in the simplest of terms. He reduces the complexities of life to a single beautiful moment, and invites us each to enjoy it with him.

(We) stand mesmerized,
wondering how you sing
your notes hold the world spellbound -
the light of your music
lights up (our) universe.

This then, is the photographic verse and vision of Unni Krishnan Pulikkal.

Herbert Ascherman, Jr.
March 14, 2009
(Herb is a master portraitist and platinum printmaker from Cleveland, Ohio, USA.
Widely published, he is an experienced teacher of aesthetics of contemporary photography and a prolific practitioner of photographic fine art.)

....................................................................................................

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by Vijayakumar Menon
(On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction')

RHAPSODY IN ABSTRACTION

The process of transforming shapes having sensory stimulation into significant forms creating imageries of meaningful situations is an individual’s internal / mental activity of presentation and re-presentation of concepts. The production of new concepts by the artist with cognitive skills in creativity is his/ her intellectual and aesthetic activity and the subsequent satisfactory response to it by the onlooker is the counter-signature for it. Any activity is placed between standardization and efficiency, and the semiotics of keeping a real shape as a sign is a kind of surrogate for concept. Deriving the uniqueness from the common and the general by framing, cropping and re-placing is ‘processing of the language’ towards the arena of art. The placement is contextualization which can convey meanings if the sign can signify the situation.

Any shape has multi-potential to become anything if abstracted from its familiar and generally accepted context. Appropriation of it by the artist making use of the abstract form of it and its potentiality of being generous to become ‘another’ is a process in terms of the medium. Reaffirming the validity of abstraction painters, sculptures and photographers create plenty of spatial elements in temporal actuality. Any form can be made a part of the super-grid of abstraction provided it can make a link in the interlocking co-ordinates of art, language and concept. Representational or imitative art such as painting, sculpture and literature didn’t have possibilities to become as abstract as music or architecture till the 19th centaury. But the folk culture with its abstract thoughts has created a lot of abstract patterns connected with floor pictures, body painting and decorative motifs. Floor pictures/diagrams, body painting etc connected with religious or ritual activities did not have the chance to go beyond the periphery of rules attached to them. Western abstract art in the20th centaury had the initiative to see art as “an entity in itself and not an imitation of anything else.” Can that definition be something like subordination or distortion of the ‘nature of it’ to give emphasis only on the plastic quality of language? The predominance of exercise in the articulation of language could be seen in some geometric abstraction in sculptures and also in colour patterns in paintings termed as Abstract Art. But in most of these examples some residual elements to recognize the subjects could be seen. Any how abstraction can also be considered as a pattern of language to communicate concepts if a visual is articulated to become an imagery, a metaphor, a sign or a metonym. Deriving forms from nature to make them motifs or decorative patterns was a phenomenon in art that gained high acclaim in the Art Nouveau movement in the west. Moving away from decoration, now artists are taking the abstracted forms as a ‘vocabulary’, for creating a language of signs to ‘narrate’ the concept/context in space and time. The abstracted form is then transformed into a metonym or a partial metonym to contextualize a situation or to signify a concept to communicate a feeling or to enable it to narrate a situation. It is a long journey from representative art to non-representative one and from there to narrative art again by using abstracted forms being made metaphors. When photography was introduced the “machine art” had a paradoxical and dichotomous relationship with painting whose language was manipulated to make the photographs pieces of fine art items.

                                                The historical situation of replacing the “mimetic subject matter” by other concerns is important in the development of visual arts. Abstraction has varied styles connected with the cultural and historical contexts. From documentation level when photography moves to inventive and creative field of fine art by articulating subjectively the objects photographed to transmute them into visual lexicon new vistas of expression are opened up.
                                                Exemplary art works having conceptual and aesthetic triumph along with compositional unity can give distinctive stylistic ideals extending the formal values to human situations and social contexts. Such conditions extending to non-conventional and philosophical dimensions hidden within the artistic psyche can create surplus values to images photographed/painted/sculpted. The non-mimetic language of abstraction in photography is a vision and a ‘will-to-form’ which subsequently attach human situations in the context of contemplation. Abstracted forms can either be just generalized patterns or essence of art content; and the imagery thus created can present itself as an entity that conveys the concept through suggestion. The elements in nature are abstract in nature, but the familiarity of which very often doesn’t allow us to deposit meanings in it. But if the ‘physical vision’ is framed and arranged with a ‘perspective’ the ‘camera vision’ can become the organic ‘inner vision’ of concepts, situations and contexts.

Photographs of Unni Krishnan Pulikkal are non-mimetic and non-documentation in nature, but constructed images and imageries (of concepts) derived from surrounding environment and framed systematically through a vision. Tiny water drops, patterns of waves, leaves, creepers, flowers, small creatures, birds and butterflies seen in nature are ‘characters’ narrating the situations or insinuate the moods through photographic language. The transparency of water drops, the ripples formed in water by the fall of a leaf on the surface of it are casual visuals but vision filled. Evening Rhapsody has a ‘stony line’ of the receding evening light on grass. The space-time relation of it is conspicuous as the tones and moods of different spots are made luminous keeping the time sequence confined to a short duration. The Ripple Abstract too is a play of light\ colour in the split-time continuum keeping the space the same. Each point of space-time phenomenon can be a spot of objective vision having a potential of visionary element in it when something is watched there contemplating on the motion of its sequence. Leaf Abstraction and Sound of Universe are the silent music of nature felt by mind. The well defined solid sound of the human-made bell with its hanging tongue resonates with the tiny water drops suspended on plants. Water drop is a symbol of universe at micro level, the macro manifestation of which shows the reflection of the cosmos philosophically. The chronicle of the events in the life of miniscule drops displaying their existence to vanish in no time is a vision which has both objective and subjective features having reflective, meditative and metaphysical dimensions. The leaf having a Zen-like contemplative mood of ‘aloneness’ on a textured surrounding is a mendicant whose solitude holds that the truth is not in scrip tunes but in human mind if one will but strive to find it by meditation even in adverse circumstances. Leaf is an image, imagery and a sign in Unni Krishnan’s photographs. The grasshopper that sculpts patterns on leaves is keeping its existence creating new visuals of symmetry in the natural rhythm of forms of organic nature whose ecological balance of dialetics of construction and deconstruction is natural. The horizontal and vertical patterns of growth of leaves and the ever-growing wound on them are the paradigm of inflection of the language of nature. The enigmatic and problematic existence of the simultaneity of freedom and captivity is signified in the narrative sequence of the bird.
                                                Unni Krishnan’s photographic dissemination is painterly in execution with philosophical suggestions of the phenomenal existence of nature, creature and human being. With suggestions, signs and metaphors viewer’s orientation is channeled and the misconception of fine art photography is erased. The qualitative elements of technical progress and artistic substance connected with photography are fused together nowadays by photographers to make it a process and also filled with concepts. The aesthetic levels of fine art photography are finer than a “straight photography” that is more documentation in nature, vision and execution. The realistic representational aspect of camera is excelled to move to the arena of painting and sculpture where the mechanical art form of photography establishes a pictorialism of forms, events, contexts and narratives. Indian scenario of photography has started accepting fine art photography, but the difference between the “machine art” and “creative painting” still persists in the social psyche. The pictorial composition and also the ‘framing’ of what is seen are the main features of visual language that make photography more painterly. ‘Fine art photography’ and ‘straight photography’ are narrowing down their differences as very few ‘creative photographers’ use this language to express their inner thoughts, feelings, moods and concepts rather than just record what their outer eyes can see. Fine art photography is “art mechanics” and also “photo-mechanics”. The division as fine art photography, painting, cinematography etc is so feeble now that it is the unfolding of ideas by artist that is given the prime importance. The “photographic photography” and the “fine art photography” are now becoming two aspects of thought where the language and diction of “photographic photography” becomes the ‘style’ in the conceptual “fine art photography”. The pictorialism of fine art photography is conceptualism having individual, social, philosophical and aesthetic traits in Unni Krishnan’s works. Human eyes have many wider, closer and deeper angles of vision, but the inner eye is more philosophical, meditative, aesthetic and idea-filled.

As painters are interested in ‘photorealism’ fine art photographers are preoccupied with ‘painterly realism’ at conceptual levels. The “self image of the concept” is art and through photography the inter connection between space and time is articulated to make the “photo-art-product” a visual text with apparent images of the self of the artist. The individual image, individualized imagery, encoded sign and programmed symbol make the photographs look like a series and picture sequences. They are metamorphosed into pictorial motifs to instigate the imagination of the viewers to read the visual text saturated with the concepts of the fine art photographer. Individual pictures\ photographs are meticulously combined to make them a composite visual text having meaningful montages of “seeing vision”.

Vijayakumar Menon
(Art historian and critic from the Baroda school, and author of many books on Indian art history and aesthetics)
....................................................................................................

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The Hindu (India's National News paper since 1878)
(On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction')
Monday, Sep 21, 2009

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.

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.

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The New Indian Express Daily
(On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction')

Presenting different perspectives

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.

Doctor,photographer, nature lover

KOCHI: It is not often that you come across works of art that capture your attention and your senses, which stand out from the rest. One can say that Unnikrishnan Pulikkal’s works choose to present nature, and life, at their calmest and most beautiful.

Dr Unnikrishnan Pulikkal is better known in photographers’ and artists’ circles as the director of the Butterfly Art Foundation, the NGO which promotes visual arts, based in Thrissur; the photographer whose catalogue of Butterfly Photographs - Damsels From Heaven - was exhibited at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Ohio, US, first for an Indian; who was featured among the top ten wildlife photographers of India in 2007 by the Better Photography Magazine; whose works have appeared in magazines like Times Journal of Photography, Discover India, Naturalli Magazine; who has conducted innumerable photo and art exhibitions all over the country and outside.

Not many know that he is a qualified doctor from Thrissur Medical College who still practises six days a week. Not surprisingly, Dr Unnikrishnan is self-taught in art and photography. As to how he manages to find time to devote to his profession and to his hobby, he says, “I have always been an introvert and generally don’t spend much time on anything other than the two.” Dr Unnikrishnan grew up in the scenic village of Chettichal, ‘when it was still untouched by civilisation,’ in his own words. “My companions were birds, butterflies and bees,” he says. All the beauty and greenery obviously had a strong impact on him, for most of his works have a touch of nature, even now. Being the only son of his parents and artisitcally inclined, he soon started experimenting with drawing. “I couldn’t afford a camera those days. I bought my first SLR camera much later, when I was around 30.” Being an avid traveller helped too. Dr Unnikrishnan has made trekking expeditions to all scenic spots of Kerala. In fact it was the images which he captured during such sojourns to the Western Ghats which later found their way to the Butterfly Photographs exhibition at The Cleveland Museum.

His tryst with art which began with painting went on to nature and wildlife photography and recently to fine art photography, where the line between painting and photography blurs. Currently, a collection of Dr Unnikrishnan’s fine art photographs are exhibited at the Chaitanya Art gallery, Kochi, titled ‘Rhapsody in Abstraction.’ “I would prefer to describe them as art for which I have used photography as a medium,” he says. Herbert Ascherman, reputed photographer and platinum print maker in the US, was a major influence on him in this genre. He hopes to offer even better contributions to the world of Fine Art Photography and at some point turn to art full time. However, for all his international acclaim, he still prefers to live at Kodaly, very near his native village, with wife Sandhya and parents. He works as administrator and Chief Medical Officer at a Primary Health Centre there. His reason for this is simple - he cannot separate himself from nature and its beauty. In his website, he says - My life is so simple!...Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the way Nature expressed itself to me was such that it appeared misleadingly innocent and deceptively transparent.Yet, my life remains simple and beautiful.
To view more of Dr Unnikrishnan’s works, log on to www.imagery.in
ashaprakash@epmltd.com

The sacred, is an eternal value pursued by artists since the dawn of civilization. Nature has been the source of inspiration, the source of mystery bordering on the divine. Rhapsody in Abstraction is a similar pursuit. The camera vision projects the familiar from an unfamiliar angle to reveal an unknown entity.

The Universe: the photograph of a water-drop. At one level it tells the story of a droplet, or any tiny creation with its innumerable parallels. In the process it acquires a symbolic dimension. It is the reflection captured in a split second that creates the magic giving a divine facet. Its transparence reflects a mystery! The realistic acquires shades of the poetic and philosophic truths. The dark backdrop enhances its mystery while the colorfully designed edges make it a beautiful composition.

Zen Leaf and Fern Abstract reveal how beauty, like truth, lies in the heart of contradictions. Solitude against multitude is the body and its soul alive in its hidden heart of contrasts. Color contrasts give rhythm to the pieces. In a meditative mood that the pictures evoke in the viewer, a philosophy is born, which is highly subjective echoing down memory lane.

The sound of universe is a sequence that juxtaposes heard and unheard melodies, nature and art. The rhythm of falling water drops and the chiming of the bell resonate in your mindscape with music known and unknown.

Ripple Abstract rivals an abstract-painting. Here the fleeting movement is captured to make an everlasting still. You have watched ripples ever since you were a child. Watching ripples brings back the childhood in you. But here it gives a twist to your sensibilities. The composition is an awe inspiring piece of work that gives a peep unto the unknown. It carries the depth of sea, its whirlpools, storms, and all its mysteries.

Evening Rhapsody is a sequence of four shots arranged to create a symphony. The play of receding evening light on the grass in a splash of red and gold, the sprinkling of green and gold as the light dances on a field, are notes that set vibrations in solitude.

The Bird Sequence is a different piece juxtaposing the bird and its relation to humans. Birds bring solace and beauty. Artists have honored the bird. But cruelty knows no bounds. Humans have caged her. The piece voices environmental concerns. The show is a marvel. Artistic substance, painterly execution, philosophic suggestions, and technical progress fall in line to create a cumulative effect that enriches aesthetic experience. Done in pigment ink on archival cotton rag paper, the pictures have a singular appearance. Somewhere you want more of them. You can view the exhibition online at www.caithanya-artgallery.com all through September.

"Individual photographs are meticulously combined to make them a composite visual text having meaningful montages of 'Seeing vision'," commented Vijayakumar Menon, the noted art-critic of Kerala.

As a person, Unnikrishnan Pulikkal is a happy combination of both science and art. He is a practicing pediatrician and a nature photographer, who has travelled all the way from pencil drawing, oil painting to fine art photography. He has won recognition for his tireless pursuit of excellence. He is a Member and Associate of The Royal Photographic Society UK, Member of National Geographic Society USA, and the founder director of The Butterfly Art Foundation India. His award winning works have been exhibited around the nation. No doubt the artist is helping to establish the relatively unknown genre, fine art photography in India.



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	Reviews of Unni Pulikkal's photographic art

	Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by Herbert Ascherman Jr. L i g h t The Photography of Unni Krishnan Pulikkal And Rabindranath Tagore's GITANJALY Light, my light, the world-filling light, the eye-kissing light, heart-sweetening light! Photo-Graphis. Photo-Graphy. Photography. Greek for Light Writing. The embodiment of the magic union of Art and Science. The physical manifestation of the All Seeing Eye. And to whom does that eye belong? Unni Krishnan Pulikkal, the man behind the camera? The One who chooses the precise moment to see, to point and to capture? Or the One to whom the image is shown, for whom the emotion of response is a sharp suck of breath or a quiet moment of closed-eyed contemplation? Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the centre of my life; the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love; the sky opens, the wind runs wild laughter passes over the earth. Sunlight sparkles upon still waters. The dewdrop’s eye rests on a bent leaf. A butterfly’s wing kisses softly. Light dances through Nature. Unni Krishnan Pulikkal follows camera in hand. The Light is his Path and guides his Journey. He is given vision to observe, awareness to sense, quiet to understand. He does so, deliberately, making each image a sacred moment of commune between himself, his God and their Natural World. The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light. Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light. The Butterfly is Unnikrishnan’s symbol. It adorns the walls of his home, the dashboard of his car, the necklace surrounding his wife’s slender neck. He has chosen this delicate creature to embody the transience of Life and the fragility of Art. Through his camera and calm demeanor, he has collected thousands of specimens, yet unlike the lepidopterists with his net, Unnikrishnan leaves each as he finds it, free and unfettered, basking in the warm Keralan sunlight. The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling, and it scatters gems in profusion. Unnikrishnan walks in silent grace. A single leaf poised delicately on a moss covered dark grey stone waits reverently. Unnikrishnan stops, bows appropriately and asks the blessing of the moment. The moment is a communion with the Great Spirit, the Eternal Over Soul which has granted him the gift of recognition. The image is before him. The moment waits. His calm demeanor senses the reverence of the space and time that surrounds them both. He takes a photograph. The moment, the essence of that moment is captured, preserved, rendered. We see what he sees. We feel what he feels. We hear the silence he hears and the emptiness of thought he experiences. The photograph of a leaf and stone becomes a touchstone with something all of us have experienced, yet so very few are able to relive or remember. Unnikrishnan has done so in colors, providing us the common denominator for a universal language that we share and understand. Mirth spreads from leaf to leaf, my darling, and gladness without measure. The heaven's river has drowned its banks and the flood of joy is abroad. Unnikrishnan Pulikkal’s photographs invite us to journey with him. We see the Earth, Air, Wind, Water and Fire that is the stuff of us all. We see common objects and the smallest of creatures raised to the height of reverence by an inquiring and observant eye. We are guided by his respect for Nature as well as for Mankind. Through his photographs we are shown the universe in the simplest of terms. He reduces the complexities of life to a single beautiful moment, and invites us each to enjoy it with him. Rabindranath Tagore has seen Unnikrishnan’s imagery and prays in Song 22: (We) stand mesmerized, wondering how you sing your notes hold the world spellbound - the light of your music lights up (our) universe. This then, is the photographic verse and vision of Unni Krishnan Pulikkal. Herbert Ascherman, Jr. March 14, 2009 (Herb is a master portraitist and platinum printmaker from Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Widely published, he is an experienced teacher of aesthetics of contemporary photography and a prolific practitioner of photographic fine art.) .................................................................................................... Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by Vijayakumar Menon (On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction') RHAPSODY IN ABSTRACTION The process of transforming shapes having sensory stimulation into significant forms creating imageries of meaningful situations is an individual’s internal / mental activity of presentation and re-presentation of concepts. The production of new concepts by the artist with cognitive skills in creativity is his/ her intellectual and aesthetic activity and the subsequent satisfactory response to it by the onlooker is the counter-signature for it. Any activity is placed between standardization and efficiency, and the semiotics of keeping a real shape as a sign is a kind of surrogate for concept. Deriving the uniqueness from the common and the general by framing, cropping and re-placing is ‘processing of the language’ towards the arena of art. The placement is contextualization which can convey meanings if the sign can signify the situation. Any shape has multi-potential to become anything if abstracted from its familiar and generally accepted context. Appropriation of it by the artist making use of the abstract form of it and its potentiality of being generous to become ‘another’ is a process in terms of the medium. Reaffirming the validity of abstraction painters, sculptures and photographers create plenty of spatial elements in temporal actuality. Any form can be made a part of the super-grid of abstraction provided it can make a link in the interlocking co-ordinates of art, language and concept. Representational or imitative art such as painting, sculpture and literature didn’t have possibilities to become as abstract as music or architecture till the 19th centaury. But the folk culture with its abstract thoughts has created a lot of abstract patterns connected with floor pictures, body painting and decorative motifs. Floor pictures/diagrams, body painting etc connected with religious or ritual activities did not have the chance to go beyond the periphery of rules attached to them. Western abstract art in the20th centaury had the initiative to see art as “an entity in itself and not an imitation of anything else.” Can that definition be something like subordination or distortion of the ‘nature of it’ to give emphasis only on the plastic quality of language? The predominance of exercise in the articulation of language could be seen in some geometric abstraction in sculptures and also in colour patterns in paintings termed as Abstract Art. But in most of these examples some residual elements to recognize the subjects could be seen. Any how abstraction can also be considered as a pattern of language to communicate concepts if a visual is articulated to become an imagery, a metaphor, a sign or a metonym. Deriving forms from nature to make them motifs or decorative patterns was a phenomenon in art that gained high acclaim in the Art Nouveau movement in the west. Moving away from decoration, now artists are taking the abstracted forms as a ‘vocabulary’, for creating a language of signs to ‘narrate’ the concept/context in space and time. The abstracted form is then transformed into a metonym or a partial metonym to contextualize a situation or to signify a concept to communicate a feeling or to enable it to narrate a situation. It is a long journey from representative art to non-representative one and from there to narrative art again by using abstracted forms being made metaphors. When photography was introduced the “machine art” had a paradoxical and dichotomous relationship with painting whose language was manipulated to make the photographs pieces of fine art items. Fine Art Photography. The historical situation of replacing the “mimetic subject matter” by other concerns is important in the development of visual arts. Abstraction has varied styles connected with the cultural and historical contexts. From documentation level when photography moves to inventive and creative field of fine art by articulating subjectively the objects photographed to transmute them into visual lexicon new vistas of expression are opened up. Exemplary art works having conceptual and aesthetic triumph along with compositional unity can give distinctive stylistic ideals extending the formal values to human situations and social contexts. Such conditions extending to non-conventional and philosophical dimensions hidden within the artistic psyche can create surplus values to images photographed/painted/sculpted. The non-mimetic language of abstraction in photography is a vision and a ‘will-to-form’ which subsequently attach human situations in the context of contemplation. Abstracted forms can either be just generalized patterns or essence of art content; and the imagery thus created can present itself as an entity that conveys the concept through suggestion. The elements in nature are abstract in nature, but the familiarity of which very often doesn’t allow us to deposit meanings in it. But if the ‘physical vision’ is framed and arranged with a ‘perspective’ the ‘camera vision’ can become the organic ‘inner vision’ of concepts, situations and contexts. Photographs of Unni Krishnan Pulikkal are non-mimetic and non-documentation in nature, but constructed images and imageries (of concepts) derived from surrounding environment and framed systematically through a vision. Tiny water drops, patterns of waves, leaves, creepers, flowers, small creatures, birds and butterflies seen in nature are ‘characters’ narrating the situations or insinuate the moods through photographic language. The transparency of water drops, the ripples formed in water by the fall of a leaf on the surface of it are casual visuals but vision filled. Evening Rhapsody has a ‘stony line’ of the receding evening light on grass. The space-time relation of it is conspicuous as the tones and moods of different spots are made luminous keeping the time sequence confined to a short duration. The Ripple Abstract too is a play of light\ colour in the split-time continuum keeping the space the same. Each point of space-time phenomenon can be a spot of objective vision having a potential of visionary element in it when something is watched there contemplating on the motion of its sequence. Leaf Abstraction and Sound of Universe are the silent music of nature felt by mind. The well defined solid sound of the human-made bell with its hanging tongue resonates with the tiny water drops suspended on plants. Water drop is a symbol of universe at micro level, the macro manifestation of which shows the reflection of the cosmos philosophically. The chronicle of the events in the life of miniscule drops displaying their existence to vanish in no time is a vision which has both objective and subjective features having reflective, meditative and metaphysical dimensions. The leaf having a Zen-like contemplative mood of ‘aloneness’ on a textured surrounding is a mendicant whose solitude holds that the truth is not in scrip tunes but in human mind if one will but strive to find it by meditation even in adverse circumstances. Leaf is an image, imagery and a sign in Unni Krishnan’s photographs. The grasshopper that sculpts patterns on leaves is keeping its existence creating new visuals of symmetry in the natural rhythm of forms of organic nature whose ecological balance of dialetics of construction and deconstruction is natural. The horizontal and vertical patterns of growth of leaves and the ever-growing wound on them are the paradigm of inflection of the language of nature. The enigmatic and problematic existence of the simultaneity of freedom and captivity is signified in the narrative sequence of the bird. Unni Krishnan’s photographic dissemination is painterly in execution with philosophical suggestions of the phenomenal existence of nature, creature and human being. With suggestions, signs and metaphors viewer’s orientation is channeled and the misconception of fine art photography is erased. The qualitative elements of technical progress and artistic substance connected with photography are fused together nowadays by photographers to make it a process and also filled with concepts. The aesthetic levels of fine art photography are finer than a “straight photography” that is more documentation in nature, vision and execution. The realistic representational aspect of camera is excelled to move to the arena of painting and sculpture where the mechanical art form of photography establishes a pictorialism of forms, events, contexts and narratives. Indian scenario of photography has started accepting fine art photography, but the difference between the “machine art” and “creative painting” still persists in the social psyche. The pictorial composition and also the ‘framing’ of what is seen are the main features of visual language that make photography more painterly. ‘Fine art photography’ and ‘straight photography’ are narrowing down their differences as very few ‘creative photographers’ use this language to express their inner thoughts, feelings, moods and concepts rather than just record what their outer eyes can see. Fine art photography is “art mechanics” and also “photo-mechanics”. The division as fine art photography, painting, cinematography etc is so feeble now that it is the unfolding of ideas by artist that is given the prime importance. The “photographic photography” and the “fine art photography” are now becoming two aspects of thought where the language and diction of “photographic photography” becomes the ‘style’ in the conceptual “fine art photography”. The pictorialism of fine art photography is conceptualism having individual, social, philosophical and aesthetic traits in Unni Krishnan’s works. Human eyes have many wider, closer and deeper angles of vision, but the inner eye is more philosophical, meditative, aesthetic and idea-filled. As painters are interested in ‘photorealism’ fine art photographers are preoccupied with ‘painterly realism’ at conceptual levels. The “self image of the concept” is art and through photography the inter connection between space and time is articulated to make the “photo-art-product” a visual text with apparent images of the self of the artist. The individual image, individualized imagery, encoded sign and programmed symbol make the photographs look like a series and picture sequences. They are metamorphosed into pictorial motifs to instigate the imagination of the viewers to read the visual text saturated with the concepts of the fine art photographer. Individual pictures\ photographs are meticulously combined to make them a composite visual text having meaningful montages of “seeing vision”. Vijayakumar Menon (Art historian and critic from the Baroda school, and author of many books on Indian art history and aesthetics) .................................................................................................... Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The Hindu (India's National News paper since 1878) (On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction') Monday, Sep 21, 2009 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 Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The New Indian Express Daily (On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction') 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. Doctor,photographer, nature lover Asha Prakash First Published : 19 Sep 2009 12:16:00 AM IST KOCHI: It is not often that you come across works of art that capture your attention and your senses, which stand out from the rest. One can say that Unnikrishnan Pulikkal’s works choose to present nature, and life, at their calmest and most beautiful. Dr Unnikrishnan Pulikkal is better known in photographers’ and artists’ circles as the director of the Butterfly Art Foundation, the NGO which promotes visual arts, based in Thrissur; the photographer whose catalogue of Butterfly Photographs - Damsels From Heaven - was exhibited at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Ohio, US, first for an Indian; who was featured among the top ten wildlife photographers of India in 2007 by the Better Photography Magazine; whose works have appeared in magazines like Times Journal of Photography, Discover India, Naturalli Magazine; who has conducted innumerable photo and art exhibitions all over the country and outside. Not many know that he is a qualified doctor from Thrissur Medical College who still practises six days a week. Not surprisingly, Dr Unnikrishnan is self-taught in art and photography. As to how he manages to find time to devote to his profession and to his hobby, he says, “I have always been an introvert and generally don’t spend much time on anything other than the two.” Dr Unnikrishnan grew up in the scenic village of Chettichal, ‘when it was still untouched by civilisation,’ in his own words. “My companions were birds, butterflies and bees,” he says. All the beauty and greenery obviously had a strong impact on him, for most of his works have a touch of nature, even now. Being the only son of his parents and artisitcally inclined, he soon started experimenting with drawing. “I couldn’t afford a camera those days. I bought my first SLR camera much later, when I was around 30.” Being an avid traveller helped too. Dr Unnikrishnan has made trekking expeditions to all scenic spots of Kerala. In fact it was the images which he captured during such sojourns to the Western Ghats which later found their way to the Butterfly Photographs exhibition at The Cleveland Museum. His tryst with art which began with painting went on to nature and wildlife photography and recently to fine art photography, where the line between painting and photography blurs. Currently, a collection of Dr Unnikrishnan’s fine art photographs are exhibited at the Chaitanya Art gallery, Kochi, titled ‘Rhapsody in Abstraction.’ “I would prefer to describe them as art for which I have used photography as a medium,” he says. Herbert Ascherman, reputed photographer and platinum print maker in the US, was a major influence on him in this genre. He hopes to offer even better contributions to the world of Fine Art Photography and at some point turn to art full time. However, for all his international acclaim, he still prefers to live at Kodaly, very near his native village, with wife Sandhya and parents. He works as administrator and Chief Medical Officer at a Primary Health Centre there. His reason for this is simple - he cannot separate himself from nature and its beauty. In his website, he says - My life is so simple!...Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the way Nature expressed itself to me was such that it appeared misleadingly innocent and deceptively transparent.Yet, my life remains simple and beautiful. To view more of Dr Unnikrishnan’s works, log on to www.imagery.in ashaprakash@epmltd.com Review of Unni Pulikkal's work in Narthaki.com Rhapsody in Abstraction Padma Jayaraj, Thrissur padmajayaraj@gmail.com September 26, 2009 (Published in www.narthaki.com) The ongoing exhibition, Rhapsody in Abstraction, of Fine Art Photography at Chaitanya Art Gallery, Kochi is a unique show. The artist, Unnikrishnan Pulikkal embarks on a rare quest through a not very familiar terrain. An artist capturing an exceptional moment from the space-time continuum and framing it in a special context to highlight an insight, is what Fine Art Photography is all about. But one needs to be an alchemist to turn base metal into gold. Here the artist is a chosen one with a God given talent and the result… holy communion that makes Rhapsody in Abstraction, an epiphany. The sacred, is an eternal value pursued by artists since the dawn of civilization. Nature has been the source of inspiration, the source of mystery bordering on the divine. Rhapsody in Abstraction is a similar pursuit. The camera vision projects the familiar from an unfamiliar angle to reveal an unknown entity. The Universe: the photograph of a water-drop. At one level it tells the story of a droplet, or any tiny creation with its innumerable parallels. In the process it acquires a symbolic dimension. It is the reflection captured in a split second that creates the magic giving a divine facet. Its transparence reflects a mystery! The realistic acquires shades of the poetic and philosophic truths. The dark backdrop enhances its mystery while the colorfully designed edges make it a beautiful composition. Zen Leaf and Fern Abstract reveal how beauty, like truth, lies in the heart of contradictions. Solitude against multitude is the body and its soul alive in its hidden heart of contrasts. Color contrasts give rhythm to the pieces. In a meditative mood that the pictures evoke in the viewer, a philosophy is born, which is highly subjective echoing down memory lane. The sound of universe is a sequence that juxtaposes heard and unheard melodies, nature and art. The rhythm of falling water drops and the chiming of the bell resonate in your mindscape with music known and unknown. Ripple Abstract rivals an abstract-painting. Here the fleeting movement is captured to make an everlasting still. You have watched ripples ever since you were a child. Watching ripples brings back the childhood in you. But here it gives a twist to your sensibilities. The composition is an awe inspiring piece of work that gives a peep unto the unknown. It carries the depth of sea, its whirlpools, storms, and all its mysteries. Evening Rhapsody is a sequence of four shots arranged to create a symphony. The play of receding evening light on the grass in a splash of red and gold, the sprinkling of green and gold as the light dances on a field, are notes that set vibrations in solitude. The Bird Sequence is a different piece juxtaposing the bird and its relation to humans. Birds bring solace and beauty. Artists have honored the bird. But cruelty knows no bounds. Humans have caged her. The piece voices environmental concerns. The show is a marvel. Artistic substance, painterly execution, philosophic suggestions, and technical progress fall in line to create a cumulative effect that enriches aesthetic experience. Done in pigment ink on archival cotton rag paper, the pictures have a singular appearance. Somewhere you want more of them. You can view the exhibition online at www.caithanya-artgallery.com all through September. "Individual photographs are meticulously combined to make them a composite visual text having meaningful montages of 'Seeing vision'," commented Vijayakumar Menon, the noted art-critic of Kerala. As a person, Unnikrishnan Pulikkal is a happy combination of both science and art. He is a practicing pediatrician and a nature photographer, who has travelled all the way from pencil drawing, oil painting to fine art photography. He has won recognition for his tireless pursuit of excellence. He is a Member and Associate of The Royal Photographic Society UK, Member of National Geographic Society USA, and the founder director of The Butterfly Art Foundation India. His award winning works have been exhibited around the nation. No doubt the artist is helping to establish the relatively unknown genre, fine art photography in India.

Concept, Text and Images © Unni Krishnan Pulikkal Site developed by Rajeev N Raman

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The Hindu (India's National News paper since 1878) (On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction') Monday, Sep 21, 2009

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The New Indian Express Daily (On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction')

Presenting different perspectives

Doctor,photographer, nature lover

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The Hindu (India's National News paper since 1878)
(On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction')
Monday, Sep 21, 2009

Review of Unni Pulikkal's work by The New Indian Express Daily
(On Unni Pulikkal's exhibition 'Rhapsody in Abstraction')