The Ancient and The Modern – Shukor Yahya Artist of the month

‘The amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful.’ 

PaulValery, Pieces sur l’art

The Malaysian artist Shukor Yahya has combined a love of graphics with ways to represent the Kufic Square and this has become an important motif in his work. Having been born in Kluang, Johor he now resides in Petaling Jaya Malaysia having studied graphics there and then at Leicester University, UK for an MA

As both artist and graphic designer he has been working for 30 years and has been exhibited all over the world. We were excited to host such innovative work at Lahd Gallery.

 

Some may know little of  Kufic Calligraphy. However, if you are unfamiliar with the name, you may well have seen examples, without realizing, as it is a modified form of a 7^th century script called Nabataean script.

Its name stems from its birth place: Kufa in Iraq. But what makes this form of calligraphy so important? It was actually used for four centuries as the principle script when copying the Qur'an. Those employed professionally, to reproduce the Qur’an,were known for their very specific type of Kufic form.

There is actually evidence of this craft all over the Ottoman Empire within books and on coins. 

Yahya’s work is highly individual and he has gained a reputation as an innovator. This is ironic perhaps, when you consider the long history of the chosen form. Yahya’s use of the ancient has metamorphosed into a graphic which exudes contemporary nuance.

Visual language, where the meaning is made by the visual appearance of an image and the text is one aspect. Verbal language, on the other hand,is the word itself, and often becomes enmeshed with other emotions in a viewer.

Yet no one would doubt there is a profound relationship between the message words convey and their transmission through their visible form. Yahya is acutely aware of this interplay. 

The implications of his choice of ‘typography’ do have a significant impact on meaning. Or at least, it does, in the framing of the narrative arch through which his work is viewed. 

Cultural and religious background can affect perception too and therefore Yahya’s Kufic Squares are still embedded in uncontrollable aspects such as pre-existing knowledge, religious expectations, preference and culture. This is what makes these paintings so provocative and exciting on many levels.

Yahya’s choice of Square Kufic is a contemporary simplified form of that used often in Iranian decorative tiling. The words spell out sacred names for Muhammad and the effect achieved is almost unnerving as they appear in Yahya’s choice of form.

Two of his works Al Ikhlas Rhapsody and As-Shahadah joined the Lahd Gallery during the London Olympics 2012 and attracted a massively diverse crowd of visitors.

The first, AlIkhlas Rhapsody is acrylic on linen in a 100x100 cm square and re-introduces the attribute of God as explained in the Qu'ran with the following meaning:

“He is Allah, One, Allah, the Eternal Refuge.

He neither begets nor is born,

Nor is there to Him any equivalent.”

The second piece is called As-Shahadah which  is the same size as Rhapsody and also acrylic on linen and directly linked to the first piece. 

The Shahadah’s meaning is a verse which states: “I bear witness that there is no God worthy of worship but Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”. The verses of the Qu'ran are represented in a Kufi Square font, which gives the painting a contemporary and geometric style. These forms interfere with the transmission of the text by the feeling of ‘now’ they promote.

For More Information on Shukor Yahya visit us at www.lahdgallery.com

Lahd Gallery Picks its Top 3 art books from 2013

If you type art at Christmas or the art of Christmas or Christmas art into Google the results are fascinating. You will turn over a cornucopia of delights ranging from original art works, framed nostalgic Christmas cards, a few posts about making Christmas wreaths and party food and the odd nativity scene.

Lahd Gallery just wanted to pose the question: ‘Are we so overpowered by the glitzy, twinkling sparkle of the consumerist version of the Christian festival that we can no longer focus on the true meaning of religious art?’  Perhaps that’s something to discuss over Christmas lunch. Or are the iconic images associated with this time of year so seared into our collective consciousness that we don’t actually need another blog post about it? Now that depends on your perspective, of course. 

However, Lahd Gallery thought it was appropriate to bring some Christmas cheer your way and propose just three great art books published in 2013!

 This is done in the vain hope, that some kind person might buy us one of these splendid titles for Christmas, and realign one’s intellectual perspective after the usual seasonal onslaught. After all, reason takes quite an assault over this festive period. You know, that feeling having overdone the festive treats when lying on the sofa watching endless reruns of ancient comedy shows no longer holds any appeal.

So, to start with, what art books would make fabulous Christmas presents or things for which one might exchange book/ gift tokens?

Lahd Gallery’s Top 3 Art Books of 2013

1. If you want to be cheerful (we were being ironic) you might wish to try Michael Petry’s spectacular tome, Nature Morte that is published by Thames & Hudson. The premise of the book is to offer a provocative and ‘richly visual’ exploration of the still life discipline, which plays such an important part in western art.

180 contemporary artists make their way into this collection and the author has put the book together under the traditional still life concerns: Flora, Food; The houses we live in and what we call home; Fauna and most interesting to Lahd Gallery is the section called ‘Death’. The whole concept of memento mori – or reminder of death, has been re-worked by a new generations of artists and it’s thought-provoking for a society which rarely mentions death without euphemisms. 

The book includes work by Cy Twombly, Marc Quinn, David Hockney, Gary Hume, Damien Hurst, Saara Ekstrom and Sophie Calle among others. This is worth splashing out on if you want to prompt some lively conversations about the symbolism of the Still Life.

2.The other title, which is also provocative, but in a very different way is Derek Jarman’s Sketchbooks, also published by Thames & Hudson. Oh what a joy it is to leaf through these gorgeous facsimiles. It is a privilege to see what one of our most interesting artists, film makers and gardeners in the twentieth century collected and held dear. This is like a peek into his mind: what inspired, what was kept, noted and preserved. Drawings and sketches, pressed flowers and clippings from the news all contribute to a pertinent portrait of a fascinating man. Of particular interest was the £10 note stuck into the journal which represents his fee for directing a film – priceless in every way. This kind of book is always highly attractive to practitioners who are greedy for insights into the creative process.

3.The last in Lahd Gallery’s  tryptich of Christmas book ideas has to be Breakfast with Lucian by George Grieg and published by Jonathan Cape. This very intimate biography of the painter Lucian Freud and you can’t help but be pulled into its prose. This book sheds light on so many aspects of a man who was a Titan in one sense and appeared to have feet of clay in another. Whether you are interested in aesthetic questions or fascinated by the gossip that surrounded Freud like a haze of summer flies, this volume will answer your questions. This is a no holds barred kind of book and if you have an interest in art should be on everyone’s Christmas list.

We wish you season’s felicitations and look forward to 2014 where we bring you more contemporary art from the MENASA region. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!!

Artist of the month : Anan Al-Olayan offers us a new theatre, a new world!

The notion of being a queen in the conventional sense is an interesting one.

A queen has power, authority and is considered iconic. Look at the regal portraits of the 16^th Century English monarch Elizabeth I and see the iconoclastic and symbolic way in which she has been portrayed. 

But pomp and circumstance belie the tremendous pressure she had to bear throughout her life. Making liaisons, marriages and treaties set her up to be subjugated and ironically Elizabeth was known as the Virgin Queen and never married.

As many will know, the world Malika means Queen in Arabic. It was in common parlance when women were referred to as ’queens’. What did that mean in reality? They were basically refused basic rights which so many women living in today take for granted. 

Like Queen Elizabeth I’s experience the word Malika came to represent restriction. It is all very well being revered, adored and set upon a pedestal. But when life consists of remaining in one place with little opportunity to be free what kind of life is it exactly asks artist Anan Al-Olayan?

Anan Al-Olayan has taken the word Malika and offered a contemporary twist. She has offered another definition through a series of works celebrating Saudi Arabian women in all their complexity. Al-Olayan refuses to be bowed by the condescending notion ‘Malika’ has represented through history.

The character of Malika is important, as Al-Olayan believes she has power. 

She also has regal qualities in as much as Malika is in control of her own territory, her thoughts, her own intimate space, her body and imagination. ‘ O My America, my new found land’ is not about subjugation as in the original poem by the Elizabethan poet John Donne suggested. 

Malika rules her own land and wears her crown proudly. No matter what stereotype is imposed she is something very different. Perhaps the world can only see her eyes; but eyes are a window into the soul. They represent a passageway into a powerful realm within. 

Through her eyes you will see Malika is strong, determined and optimistic but most importantly true to her beliefs.

Anan Al-Olayan was born in 1976 and is Saudi Arabian by birth. She lives between London and Al-Khobar and travel frequently, drawing on the inspiration such differing cultural experiences bring.  

She is a self-taught artist who creates digital composite images using insertions of drawings and photographs. Her work is termed "digital fine art". She also completes mixed media paintings and collages on both wood and canvas.

Her initial calling was an academic one, following parental expectations. Her first career was Microbiologist and medical researcher. However there are voices that will never be silenced and after years of studying Art in workshops and courses it was clear her calling lay elsewhere. 

It is obvious Al-Olayan’s interest lies within the minutiae of Malika’s mind in this set of paintings. The unseen world beneath the microscope lens is populated by a multitude of detail and images that are usually unseen. 

Anan opens up this world and demonstrates just what lies behind the veil. Just as the 16^th century gentlemen who first used microscopes in the 1620s were suddenly privileged to view another dimension Al-Olayan gives us a new vision. 

She makes clear all that had always existed but outsiders never knew. Al-Olayan offers us ‘a new theatre of nature, another world’ to quote the 17^th century poet and composer Sir Constantijn Huygens.

Geometry and Fragility: The work of Asli Erel - Artist of The Month

Making marks that eventually come to represent something is part of the human experience. Signs and symbols become loaded with meaning. Already there is expectation, epistemologies and a dominant hegemony imbued in the symbols we use everyday. The chosen alphabet identifies a position, a culture. It is more than just a way to communicate. We may feel it’s easy to put a mark on a page but each letter is a story in itself and the artist Asli Erel is acutely aware of this fact.

When studying any history of the Arabic alphabet it is clear the Abjad has been amended since it first surfaced as a form of communication. The Arabic alphabet may well be a derivative of the Nabataean variation of the Aramaic alphabet. In turn this comes from the Phoenician alphabet. The links do not stop there. As among others it contributed to the development of the Hebrew and  Greek alphabet and by association therefore the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets too. Each great civilization dictates and amends, literally leaving its mark. This is a fascinating area to explore and ripe for an artist to deconstruct.

Earlier in 2013 Erel exhibited at the Lahd Gallery in Hampstead in a show entitled Letters and Art of War. The origin of letters and the alphabet was explored. It covered the ancient territories of Egypt right through to the historical transition of Islam. Interestingly Erel uses these revelations to show that war is a constant; it has always been part of the human psyche and is sadly likely to exist always.

Ironically she explores the concept that although in the Middle East ideas of existence, civilization, hope and divinity were born, the flip side to these significant developments is the fact life ceases and is snuffed out by frequent wars.

As humans, what we choose to communicate in written form differs from colloquial speech. As far back as the 2^nd century BC the very first written records using the Nabataean alphabet were set down but the Aramaic language. This is actually a language predominantly centred around trade and communication thus demonstrating the dominance of trade at that time. Erel is interested in these differences and offers an opportunity to look carefully at the hand of the artist by placing hand painted letters on stylized geometric backgrounds ( see H102).

The pigment is intensely coloured as if to underscore the societal, philosophic and religious grids upon which we communicate. The symbols lack the weight of the intensely coloured blocks and therefore suggests a fragility, a transience that our efforts at setting down thoughts are all that is ever left of us. (see H104)

H119 imposes a rigidity, a process and underscores the calligrapher’s imprisonment within each square. The light touch, the uneven application of pigment is strangely provocative. The alphabet is set but each human hand registers an element of imperfection.

Geometric shapes underpins the desire for order but the letters themselves demonstrate just how risky it is to teach an alphabet to individuals who will interpret it differently, will breathe life into a set of symbols so their meaning can potentially be transformed into sedition, anarchic prose and revolution. All the while the writing itself appears tentative.

Asli Erel’s work demonstrates her love of screen-printing or serigraphy, which she has been doing since her high school days. In 1998 she began at the workshop of Architect-Muralist Semih Irtes who was also her master. Having attended courses in Decorative Arts at Topkapi Palace she then went on to study at Yildiz Technical University. Having graduated in 2003 she then followed up her studies with more at ArtRumi where she explored traditional Turkish arts, often working with wood, classical mats and canvas.


This is Asli Erel’s artistic territory. She was born in Istanbul in 1980 and is currently pursuing her artistic interests in light of the progress of Islam and other celestial religions. What is evident in her work is how the spiritual repercussions impact on us. Her stylized perspective regarding traditional calligraphy and Islamic arts targets Sufistic philosophy (see H120 ). She is also a photographer but her work on show at the Lahd Gallery as November’s Artist of the Month is generally oil on canvas.

To paint with Fear and Trembling - Lahd Gallery explores dark phenomena

Artists turn themselves inside out; fear and trembling are external hints of what is really going on beneath the skin. Yet for many creatives, their pain is visible, visceral and filled with discomforting dark phenomena they expose for our scrutiny.

It is as if artists sacrifice any semblance of normality and refuse to be placated in their search for what some might see as a horrifying truth. This is a truth that can be unpalatable, edgy and threatens to unleash all that has historically been so powerfully subjugated.  The installations of Grzegorz Klaman are an example of this edginess which forces the viewer to ask unpalatable questions about the world. His intense exhibition ‘Fear and Trembling was staged at the Haif Museum of Art in 2009.

In fact, artists from the Middle East often articulate the experience of collision between cultures and experiences. It is as if some are being pressed into the gaps between east and west. These are inexorably shifting towards one another and creating overbearing pressure.

This year Lahd Gallery has exhibited, amongst others, Suhair Sibai, Wadia Boutaba, and Asli Erel. These three artists are aware of these pressures. Their work expresses fissures, fault lines but also a glimpse into the molten heart of the female experience.

Their work is about struggle, about conflicting influences of disruption and complex identities. They challenge beliefs and explore notions of fear and oppression through certain iconoclastic beliefs.

SuhairSibai’s art has at its centre a locus of displacement, division. It faces the dark phenomena lurking within each one of us. We live with it but often mask internal passion, emotion and fear beneath societal expectation, tradition and ritual. These structures attempt to maintain surface calm and acceptance of an approximation less challenging than what lies beneath.

These artists occupy an uncomfortable spot at the juncture of culture. This is a complex vantage point. Politically there is the residue of essentialism, otherness and absence to deal with as Wadia Boutaba’s work demonstrates. However, this focus on the domestic occurs alongside the impact of a new global political order and the highly politicised gender debate which questions the very notion of female ‘self’.

Realism is the new mimesis but still a representation with its own political agenda and subjectivity. These artists are not content to passively picture the contemporary world.

A realism, a brutal line of enquiry which interrogates the  ‘Why and the who says? Which challenges what mandate governments possess and for how much longer?’ Sibai’s work, for example offers up representations of strong women whose expressions are still somehow veiled by the invisible yet tangible continued misogyny evident across the globe.

Elsewhere, others, such as the Columbian artist Doris Salcedo’s installation Shibboleth in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall  (2007-2008) investigate the dark phenomena at work in the world. Her installation was composed of a crack that ran the length of the imposing Tate Modern space. The sides of this crack were encased in a steel mesh fence.  The definition of shibboleth is maybe a custom, a way of speaking a phrase, or even a style of dress that enables specific groups or classes to be racially or socially excluded. You look into the crack and see the darkness within.

Mona Hatoum also offered an even more startling insight back in 1989  with her installation ‘Light At The End' A stunning, provocative and visceral play on the juxtaposition of light and darkness, of supposed salvation and notions of torture.

There is an intense desire to come to terms with the realism of this dramatic new world order, the abuses, censorship and repressive nature which still prevail. ‘Art is praxis…an engaged stance in the historical present.’

Asli Erel understands that even making marks are loaded with symbolic meaning. We may feel it’s easy to put a mark on a page but each letter is a story in itself and the artist is acutely aware of this fact.

Our artists make art in uncomfortable times. 

We all struggle with concealment and revelation, truth and artifice, the experienced and the imagined. The great battles between good and evil, darkness and light, ignorance and wisdom, prejudice and tolerance, suppression and liberation, are acknowledged; Halloween being one such time; the Day of the Dead being another example.

Some contemporary artists paint with fear and trembling always, in an attempt to explore this darkness and bring it into the light.

Artist of The Month - Wadia Boutaba: dichotomies and interstice

The painter Jenny Saville stated in a recent interview that she found that as a woman, being a creator of life and a creator of paintings an extraordinary privilege. It is a fact that informs her latest work on every level. As a significant voice in contemporary art work she has demonstrated how women no longer exist within a painting but are also creators of artworks.

Wadia Boutaba is a young artist who also sheds light on women’s lives and what it means to be female. Feminism is a key theme and often informs the critical reception her work receives.

In fact Boutaba occupies interstices and is very much inspired by the duality of her Moroccan and British heritage. She was born in the UK to Moroccan parents, who originated from Nador, north of Morocco. Boutaba’s paintings depict these tangible Moroccan roots and the diversity of this ancient culture. Its influence is highly significant. Boutaba calls herself the “Moroccan Artist” and her use of colour and the vivid depiction of Morocco’s unique society is redolent throughout her paintings. Yet there is a knowing which emanates from her British experience and education.

Boutaba often represents her Moroccan identity through a type of cultural dialogue. Within this exchange she poses many questions while constantly wrestling the challenges of having two identities. Her oeuvre reflects the dichotomy thrown up by such collisions of experience. The fissures are evident everywhere.

However she does believe art can provide a bridge between people and cultures.  After all, Boutaba says: ‘The struggle of being influenced by two very different societies and cultures is not something you can really be taught to handle. Finding a balance is always difficult.’ Therefore her work both concurrently celebrates and challenges the notion of what was once seen as ‘women’s experience’.

Patriarchal lineage is disrupted as Boutaba overtly questions accepted norms. Her work explores these female experiences as a residue of cultural influence. The exotic and the everyday are carefully balanced in works such as Untitled  1205 So is the conundrum of being mother, home maker, career woman and challenger of accepted cultural iconoclastic beliefs.  These complex identities can lead to a fusion of fragility and strength. This dichotomy is often presented in Boutaba’s work Untitled 1208

Having studied at art school her initial passion was textile design and her degree followed this subject. Textiles in themselves have been used by artists such as Emin and Schapiro to subvert the dominant patriarchal hegemony. Yet Boutaba returned to fine art in her late twenties. 

She once said she saw the practice of art as a way of expressing not just a personal perspective but as recording what can be observed of the everyday. Consequently women in Moroccan culture often form the basis for her work. Her narrative arch was constructed through listening to female conversations. She has been fascinated by how roots and fibres are stretched and sometimes broken by the fragmentation of communities across different continents. 

Boutaba makes little effort to hide her political interests or cultural perspective. Her paintings avoid the artifice of supposed neutrality as if to say her knowledge and experience is socially situated – please take note.

Similarities between North Africa and the Middle East also inspire her. So does societal shifts which have seen women gaining equality. Her use of colour underscores the profound change and celebration of the new. Sometimes Boutaba says her work is inspired mainly by feeling, and responses to what is actually happening within the immediate domestic surrounding as well as the wider political arena. It’s the interplay of private and public, traditional and contemporary, female and feminine which is so intriguing in Boutaba’s work. Lahd Gallery is proud to be featuring such powerful work.

Sadiq Toma – I am not an excavator or an archaeologist

‘Memory is a great artist. For every man and for every woman it makes the recollection

of his or her life a work of art and an unfaithful record.’ French author, Andre Maurois

The Iraqi artist Sadiq Toma’s work, explores the art of memory or ars memoriae. This is an ancient collection of techniques which aids recall by managing the impressions memory creates. It allows a person to improve their ability to remember while also helping with the formulation of ideas.  Toma is also keen to point out memory is a construct. He says it is a fragment, a subjective perspective and should always be viewed with an element of scepticism.

The overall concept of ars memoriae has existed for thousands of years. Pythogorans and Ancient Egyptians were certainly aware of techniques such as associating emotionally striking memories with specific locations. Or making inks between groups of images or images with schematic graphics like signs. All forms of markings do, in fact all play their part. Toma has used these practices to represent perspectives in new and dynamic forms.

For Sadiq Toma, it is evident, new themes and inspiration, ironically, come from distant memories and the past. Yet, Toma is not content to merely excavate his own personal memories. He also embraces the memories of an entire ancient civilisation belonging to Iraq. He constantly searches for a sense of fulfilment across a canvas. Although Toma, like all humanity, is influenced by the past, he is equally concerned by the present or future. Both of which are destined, in themselves, to be transformed into memory.

Sumerian art is also an influence, but Toma has no desire to be either excavator or archaeologist. He constantly searches for a fresh view of life, death, love and ritual as seen in his work entitled, Love Poem. He acknowledges Gilgamesh and his own quest and questions about the fate of mortals.

However, simply by having an acquaintance of Sumerian art, such as fragments of clay tablets depicting cuneiform writing, is enough to affect the present. Toma transforms hidden visions into contemporary forms such as Amorous Poem 8.  By employing a variety of materials, Toma’s work explores and reflects an intense belief this specific period was one of the most profound influences within his Iraqi roots.

The paintings exhibited at the Lahd Gallery(link) show an artist who has selected, rejected, reworked and represented, almost as if he has created a  form of ‘tagging’. Arabic letters and technical tools are lifted and represented. The construction of the artworks sometimes spill from the frame as memory burst from the confines we attempt to construct for it see Amorous Poem 3

He may use characters as decorative texts but does not make any reference or specific indication as to  where they have been gleaned see Tree  Sometimes these references are obscure and at other times well known poetic texts. Typography is refashioned. Words and symbols are seemingly scattered across the picture. Therefore Toma’s contrast, between the construction of calligraphic form and the semi abstract natural background, present a provocative dichotomy. They function as a form of palimpsest; here the spiritual and unconscious appear and disappear within works such as Amorous Poem or Oasis.

As Tagore once explained:

‘'Oh my soul, don't seek for eternity but do your best to achieve the most of your limited life.'  

Sadiq Toma has certainly taken these words to heart.

Brief Biographical Detail of Sadiq Toma

Sadiq Toma is an internationally acclaimed artist, with roots in Baghdad Iraq. He was born in 1952 and worked as a freelance illustrator in the Iraqi Museum and was a poster designer, illustrator, animator and designer. He is now a full time artist.

Toma’s work, explores the art of memory or ars memoriae, where his new themes and inspiration come from distant memories and the past. Yet, Toma is not content to merely excavate his own personal memories. He also embraces the memories of an entire ancient civilisation of Iraq. He constantly searches for a sense of fulfilment across a canvas. Although Toma, like all humanity, is influenced by the past he is equally concerned by the present or future which are both destined, in themselves, to be transformed into memory.

His work has been exhibited in Iraq, London, Leicester, Dublin, Sheffield, Scotland, Japan, Korea, Denmark, Sharjah, America, France, and Finland. Solo shows are equally diverse: London Kufa Gallery, Argel Gallery, Jersey Gallery and Artspace Galleries.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgJGlFHnXuQ