Event:

Inside/Outside

Calligraphy Exhibition of Wissam Shawkat

26 jan 2016
7 mrt 2017
  • XVA Gallery
  • Al Fahidi Historical Neighborhood, P.O.Box 37304 Dubau

Shawkat's unique style is referred to as Calligraform. He works with the precise forms of Arabic letters, and the abstract shapes generated by examining the geometric shapes and spaces inside and outside the letter's structures. His works are regularly featured in books on Arabic calligraphy and typography. His works are included in museum and private collections.

wissam-shawkat-2016-original-through_the_eyes_of_letters_s.jpg20161129-17514-94sif6 - Through the Eyes of Letters, 2016. Acrylic colours on handmade paper. 60 x 45 cm. © Wissam Shawkat Wissam Shawkat

I am a calligrapher turned conceptually motivated artist. How does someone self-trained in the most rigid, rule-based medium break out into abstraction? Now more than 30 years into my calligraphy practice, I dutifully studied traditional scripts, compositions, and forms until at last I felt qualified to judge which principles could be overridden and unbound, and which were to remain. 
 
Before calligraphy was canonized as a form it was once considered revolutionary and experimental. My practice is an effort to take it back to that disorienting place that teeters on the edge of what is known and what is unfamiliar. 
 
I am drawn to the graphic value of the Arabic letters well beyond their literal meanings. For instance, the sharp tail of a 'ha' can be cut off from the curved body of the letter and serialized with pen or brush at unrecognizable angles. 
 
Although it may have initially come to me by meditating upon a letter, the ultimate shape is a monumental form that is not exclusively anchored in the Arab world. I am moved as much by old Turkish masters as I am by the Bauhaus, Geometric Abstraction, Futurism, Cubism, and Cecil Touchon's collages. 
 
Beginning with this new body of work, I have chosen to refer to my style and approach as Calligraform. This refers to the emphasis on the forms of the letters, their inner and outer spaces and graphic quality, investigated in tandem with the precise shapes of calligraphic characters.

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Wissam Shawkat was born in Basra, Iraq in 1974. At the age of 10 he expressed an interest in Arabic calligraphy and has since become a conceptually motivated master. Shawkat is living and working in Dubai as an artist, designer and Arabic typographer.