A Follow Formed by Seeing and Writing
Pictures and language have accompanied Ulrike Pichl all through her life, lengthy earlier than she consciously positioned her work inside a creative framework. Raised in Germany, she accomplished her secondary schooling with a robust give attention to artwork and German literature, a twin orientation that continues to tell her sensitivity to each pictures and phrases. She later studied communication design and earned her diploma with a specialization in images, grounding her inventive instincts in formal coaching. From early on, images was not merely an educational pursuit however a lived expertise, deeply rooted in her household setting, the place analog images performed a central position. Studying to develop movie within the darkroom and dealing with large-format cameras throughout her research formed her understanding of photographic materiality and persistence, despite the fact that her present follow is totally digital.
Though her instruments have modified, the attentiveness cultivated by analog processes stays current in her approach of seeing. Right now, she works solely with digital images, but she approaches the medium with restraint and intentionality. Writing has been equally fixed in her life, one thing she practices nearly every day. For a few years, these two types existed facet by facet with out formally intersecting. It was solely in 2023 that she started to consciously unite images and poetry, permitting textual content and picture to perform as a single expressive gesture. Collectors now obtain handwritten poems alongside her images, turning every work right into a layered encounter that extends past the visible.
This convergence displays a broader understanding of inventive work as a lived course of somewhat than an outlined class. Pichl doesn’t separate her creative id from her on a regular basis perceptions. Her background in literature sharpens her consideration to nuance, whereas her design schooling helps readability and composition. Collectively, these components form a follow that values environment, instinct, and emotional resonance over rationalization. What emerges isn’t an try and doc the world because it seems, however to translate the way it feels to inhabit it, second by second, by gentle, coloration, and language.
Ulrike Pichl: From Photographer to Artist By Recognition
For a very long time, Ulrike Pichl didn’t describe herself as an artist. She understood her work merely as images, with out feeling the necessity to attract a line between technical ability and creative intention. Whether or not such a boundary exists in any respect stays an open query for her. Curiously, it was not an inside choice that marked a shift, however the notion of others. Individuals round her acknowledged a creative high quality in her work lengthy earlier than she felt comfy claiming that id herself. This exterior recognition turned extra tangible in 2023, when she introduced her work publicly for the primary time at a small artwork truthful in Nuremberg.
Approaching that exhibition, she carried a deep concern that her images may not resonate, that nobody would wish to interact with or purchase them. The fact was fairly totally different. Her work acquired heat, considerate suggestions and encouragement from viewers in addition to from established artists. Past gross sales, what mattered most was the conclusion that her pictures and texts touched folks, that they supplied one thing viewers might carry into their very own lives. This expertise supplied the boldness to proceed presenting her work inside a creative context, despite the fact that images and writing had lengthy been important personal practices for her.
Her type in the present day is straight away recognizable by its softness, blur, and intentional vagueness. She at present restricts her material to nature, photographing throughout walks, in her backyard, or by her window. Naturalism and sharp definition don’t curiosity her. As an alternative, she seeks the emotional pressure of sunshine and coloration. She works with components many photographers keep away from, akin to backlighting, overexposure, underexposure, and even permitting her thumb to enter the body. Liquids and grease utilized to the lens create shimmering, dreamlike surfaces that soften type and dissolve construction. These results are produced bodily, not by digital filters, main her to explain her pictures as “sfumatographs,” a time period borrowed from portray to specific gradual transitions and atmospheric ambiguity.
Dwelling With Ache, Writing Towards Magnificence
The emotional depth of Ulrike Pichl’s work is inseparable from her lived expertise. She consciously leaves grainy, smeared, and unretouched areas inside her images, permitting them to exist like visible sediments. These areas usually are not imperfections to be corrected however integral components of the picture, carrying weight and texture. Her intention is to not beautify actuality or to darken it artificially, however to convey what it feels wish to see and exist inside a second. Magnificence, darkness, melancholy, and tenderness coexist in her work with out hierarchy, reflecting an sincere engagement with interior life.
Her writing processes themes which are current in her life at a given time. Limitation, sickness, and ache recur incessantly, formed by her expertise of persistent migraine, endometriosis, and lipedema. Power migraine, specifically, defines an existence marked by fixed fluctuation between bearable days and moments of overwhelming depth. This instability creates a way of residing a number of lives directly, shifting forwards and backwards between totally different states of being. Such experiences introduce a refined heaviness into her pictures, one thing some viewers intuitively acknowledge whereas others don’t. Each responses are equally legitimate inside her understanding of artwork.
Regardless of this, her work isn’t an expression of despair. Writing and photographing carry her away from ache and towards what is gorgeous and sustaining. Love, hope, and longing seem repeatedly in her texts, alongside a deep consciousness of transience. One in all her poems, “In Suspension,” speaks of strolling into partitions of sunshine, of forests with out age, and of a gift second mirrored by the physique. This sensitivity to fleeting expertise aligns along with her perception that many individuals lengthy for artwork that may be understood intuitively somewhat than intellectually. She usually describes her follow as exploring the borderlands between the seen, affiliation, and interior life, a phrase that precisely captures the quiet depth of her work.
Ulrike Pichl: Time, Mild, and Future Worlds
Amongst Ulrike Pichl’s works, one piece holds specific private significance. Titled On the Brink of Time, it measures 75 by 100 centimeters and depicts gentle filtering between tree trunks in a forest. The picture is suffused with a golden glow that offers it an nearly residing presence, particularly when encountered in particular person. Printed as a wonderful artwork work on Alu-Dibond, matte laminated and framed in oak, it exists as a singular piece, constant along with her strategy to singular, unrepeatable works. Whereas the {photograph} itself is highly effective, what issues most to her is the accompanying textual content.
The poem hooked up to On the Brink of Time addresses a way of timelessness and an interior tipping level, the second when one turns into conscious that one thing inside has shifted. Every little thing inside the work stays obscure and unresolved, mirroring experiences acquainted to those that reside with anxiousness or despair. Magnificence begins to blur as time feels suspended, at all times returning to the identical hour. Strains describing forests shifting, pupils turning into golden lakes of timber, and time dissolving department by department articulate a quiet groundlessness. Picture and textual content collectively convey a state the place notion and emotion are inseparable, providing neither decision nor rationalization.
Her every day working course of stays easy and intuitive. She images nearly daily, with out setting out with a particular intention, utilizing solely her smartphone and accessible gentle. There isn’t a tripod or extra tools, permitting full freedom of motion. Ideas and fragments are collected repeatedly in a notes app, whereas poems meant as completed works are at all times written by hand in a cherished pocket book. She understands artwork as a dialogue between disciplines and infrequently suggests music to collectors to deepen their expertise of a picture. Wanting forward, she is planning an exhibition in 2026 the place texts, gentle, and audiovisual components will carry better weight, creating immersive environments guests can enter. She additionally goals to supply backlit textile works, notably with cloud pictures, to present them an object-like presence that extends her exploration of sunshine into bodily house.
