September 2010

Following a 23-year (1979-2002) collaboration with Kevin Jackson on the body of work known as Farah-Jackson, I decided to go solo and explore my passion for calligraphy.

In all my years as an artist travelling around the world for research and for my exhibitions and making marks in the various media, there have been the recurring obsessions…. tents, pots and calligraphy.

Until recently I did not examine these but on one level one could say that a roof over our head, a receptacle for the preservation of food and drink and the written word…..call it knowledge…education…communication….and the air we breathe is all we need in this life.

I cannot separate the art that I make from my deep involvement with Sufi practice. But as Abu Sa’id Ibn Abi ‘l-Khayr (967-1049), the Sufi shaykh (guide) and poet said: The first step in this affair (Sufism) is the breaking of inkpots and the tearing up of books and forgetting of all kinds of knowledge.

My calligraphic works (as prints, painting and more recently pottery) encompass this esoteric and exoteric practice. Because my art and life are one, underlying it all is the practice of simplicity, openness and love, sadly taboo words in these complex times.

I see life as ultimately uncomplicated, a tabula rasa, there is no need for conceptualization or dramatization. I gravitate towards earthiness and that is reflected in my use of the various media; paper, gold, paint, pigment, marble dust, clay, cotton or linen. Most of my works on paper with gold embody Sufi practice…my mandala (a symbol as in a dream, representing the dreamer’s search for completeness and self-unity).

Recently I have been working with plaster on pottery; I hope every piece tells a story. One day I want to make hundreds of little pots rolling on the ground and shown as a tight ‘carpet’ or in a room that would represent the world in its wholeness.

Now I live in Morocco exploring new territory and a wealth of culture and traditions and I am learning a new language, ‘Magribi’. Recently in discussion I found out that the word I know as ‘al hakawati’, the storyteller in Classical Arabic is known here as ‘al mukharifin’, the fabricator of tales which I realise means the same thing. Once again I am reminded of the similarities between us and why we need to continually pull the strings that open our heart to each other, whichever way we know how. And for me it’s in my art.

May 2006

The work in this exhibition celebrates an enduring Arab tradition that still unites us in times of sharp differences: Calligraphy.

Arabic letters still stand as reminders of the aspiration that unites people from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. One dream, one history, one language, it can all be experienced in the architecture of the Arabic alphabet.The turmoil besetting our region couldn’t have made a more important time to invoke this art, in celebration. The letters appearing in my work do not unfold as part of words, or sentences with big ideas.

My art does not convey answers or solutions. The letters stand alone, fragmented, manipulated and stripped of literary significance. Yet they aim to combine into meaningful impressions, in each viewer’s perception. There are also volumes of personal history in these works.

Memories of journeys, cities and fabrics are in every letter’s curve or dot. My displacement across continents while yearning for a spiritual peace is at times palpable. However it’s the yearning for love and beauty that I hope you will experience looking at these works, and the power of Arabic letters to conjure memories.

Mahmood Kaabour  & Rima Farah
Film maker
‘Being Osama’