Faces of Your Other 2004-2008

Diverting the contemporary world

From 2004 to 2009, the project «from right to left» allowed me to explore the interactions between Arabic calligraphy and self-portrait. Works where movement is marked by a sense of urgency, letters multiply and words are brought together, thus forming parts of my own face. This primitive and chaotic gesture, reminiscent of graffiti art, represents my personal dramatic universe. This cobweb of Arabic vocabulary, tinged with hints of French and English, stems from my flow of thoughts: fragments of poetry, excerpts from Koranic surah’s or common idioms. The mix of different cultural heritages shown with Western portraits and Arabic calligraphy allows the observer to be active by deciphering the sentences in different languages and directions (right to left or vice versa). If language is here a symbol of individuality as it composes a pictorial self-representation, it also helps creating a community in which the Other participates in this artistic face to face.

The conflicting relationship between text and image draws firstly from my father’s legacy who, as a Moroccan painter, bore the guilty burden of painting human figures despite its proscription in Islam. Even with my first series, it was important to put a scheme in place in order to trick aniconism and design a new type of portrayal. By diverting Arabic calligraphy, an abstract and decorative craft used traditionally by Muslim artists, my work borders human representation with words shaping faces. While calligraphy is still readable, the face’s composition remains abstract and implicit. If there is a way to reunite words and figures in Muslim art, I’m not producing paintings but rather writing portraits.