Malayalee photo artist Shibu Arakkal wins Gold prize at Florence …

Shibu Arakkal, a Bangaluru based Malayalee photo artist and the son of eminent painter Yusuf Arakkal, bagged the Lorenzo il Magnifico gold prize in digital art at the prestigious Florence Biennale 2013 concluded last week. Though Shibu Arakkal had entered his work into the photography category of the biennale, the international panel of jurists decided to award him under the digital art category, due to his technique and his creative execution of the work. The work titled “Constructing Life” is  8′ x 6′ comprising of 12 panels and it is a digital photo print on canvas dealing with the portraits of Construction workers in Bangaluru.

“Constructing Life shows the photographer investigating his subjects at an even deeper level, plumbing human experience and emotion, though doing so in a way that simultaneously echoes and reinterprets his formal approach to imagery. Here, the construction workers’ faces are the focus, sometimes completely filling the images. Superimposed on the faces are the cracks, peeling paint, and other textural irregularities of weathered walls,” says Jeffrey Wechsler, Senior Curator of Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New York.

Shibu Arakkal’s work ‘Constructing-Life’.

“My work is fuelled and driven by my state of mind and my sincere beliefs. It is hence quintessentially philosophic and it is my way of living my life through my work. As such, I explain everything I feel through my work but in terms of questions and not very often through answers. I’m drawn to profound philosophic ideas and thoughts irrespective where it comes from. Hence, my work always seems to find questions to dig up,” Shibu told India Today (Malayalam) back from Florence.

The Florence Biennale this year comprised of around 475 artists from all over the world, who participated under main categories such as painting, sculpture, art on paper, video art, digital art, photography, installation etc. This year’s Lifetime achievement awardee at the Florence Biennale was famous Indian artist Anish Kapoor. “Kapoor was  gracious enough to have come to see my work and to talk to me and exclaimed that he thought that my work was fantastic,” says a visibly excited Shibu.

Shibu Arakkal with lifetime achievement awardee Anish Kapoor.

Shibu Arakkal’s works have been shown everywhere from Italy, England and Singapore to New Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore over a 19 year career. For his work, he has travelled extensively through vast parts of Western Europe, Southeast Asia and parts of the Middle East, amongst other countries. “I discovered photography accidentally while studying fashion illustration on the way to becoming a jewellery designer, one of my long list of ambitions. I was growing up very unclear as to what I wanted to do with my life as I got bored of most things too easily, especially after I had figured it out. But not only has photography held my interest for the past nineteen years, it has become my very purpose in life and something that I do with utmost sincerity and diligence. But that in this world is a very difficult thing, where everyone wants you to compromise or take the short cut,”  says Shibu.

Ask him what he learnt from his eminent dad Yusuf Arakkal, his answer is spontaneous. “My dad always said that if you do something, you must do it to the very best of your ability, even if that was sweeping the floor. Two things I have taken from that. One, to strive towards very high levels of excellence and two, to take pride in whatever you do. There is no such thing as a menial job, it is only so if you believe that it is,” signs off Shibu.