The Presence of the Arab Letter

[From the French language press]:

Nous remarquons que dans vos écritures, il y a un dialogue, un brassage de cultures…
En effet, un dialogue entre les civilisations orientales, mésopotamienne, phénicienne et arabo-musulmane…

J’aime que toutes mes écritures seront tirées de l’œuvre de Tawhidi, ce grand penseur arabo-perse.

El Watan, Algérie - mardi 22 mai 2007 - par C. Berriah

We notice that in your calligraphies there is a dialogue, a mixing of cultures…
Indeed, a dialogue between Eastern civilizations, Mesopotamian, Phenician and Muslim-Arabic…
I like that all my calligraphies are drawn from the work of Tawhidi, this great Arabic-Persian thinker.

Algerian artist Yazid Kheloufi (b. 1963), who will soon exhibit in Paris, interviewed by C. Berriah for Algerian Daily El Watan about his materic art and his relationship to calligraphy and sufism.

It is not a secret that your works feel mysticism?!
Certainly not, as you know, my painting is based on the great sufi repertory and the illuminative philosophy which was founded by famous Chihab Eddine Al Suhrawardi.

It is true that you cannot do without calligraphy?
For me, Islamic calligraphy remains an interior topography of oneself. The presence of the Arab letter is very strong in the imaginary of a Muslim, much more than the image.

I give you an example: the image cannot serve the divine message, whereas the letter is abstract and the divine one is abstract. Allah, the name of God in Islam, cannot be represented in image, whereas the letter and the alphabet can serve the divine one…

[picture: voyage d'amour et de mort (journey of love and death), calligraphy on textile, cm 80 x 400 (31" x 157") http://www.artmajeur.com/yazid/]

[About Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d. ah 414/ce 1023 visit http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/rep/H046]