“A friend recently gifted me with a box of old negatives he found while cleaning out his late father’s half-century-old photography studio in the town of Thrissur, Kerala (a state in southern India). My friend’s father was a prominent portrait photographer who worked with 2 ¼ films in the 1960s. I curiously opened the box only to find the negatives damaged beyond recognition by time and humidity. Initially, I did not consider them worthy of further exploration. The thought then occurred to me that in their deteriorated state they not only had a story to tell but had an aesthetic conceptual appeal as well.”
“The project to discover these negatives began in 2017. With the help of a temperature balanced backlight, I photographed the illuminated negatives. My close-up lens revealed both the intricacies contained in the negative’s images and the physical characteristics of the deteriorated substrate in which the images were held. The resultant photograph is a combination of the original photograph of the sitter as pictured, the marks of Time appearing as structural changes in the emulsion, the chromatic and tonal changes of the image, and the organic changes in the form of fungal growth and putrefaction.”
“The individual faces in the picture may be lost to oblivion, but in spite of the years of decay, the vague image of their ethos remains. Words vanish. Forms fade. The traces of our deeds remain.”
Unni Pulikkal
‘Transformations’, Unni Pulikkal’s solo exhibition of photographs, opens on Sept. 11, 2019, in the inaugural season of the Cleveland Photo Fest, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. The Festival will run through November 30th, 2019. A citywide event, the CPF aims to strengthen the appreciation of photography as a major force in today’s visually driven culture. The festival will feature gallery and art space exhibitions, photographer’s presentations, and community-oriented educational events.
Unni Krishnan Pulikkal : Transformations
September 11th. thru October 8th
FOOTHILL GALLERIES of the PHOTO-SUCCESSION
2450 Fairmount Blvd. Ste. M291
Cleveland Heights, Ohio 44106
