Ming ceramics from China, £120.00
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Word into art
Ahmed Moustafa (Egypt-UK), The heart of sincerity, silkscreen on paper
This work is inspired by Chapter 112 of the Qur'an (called 'Sincere religion'). The text is written in mirror writing - that is where the left side 'mirrors' the right. The same is true for the calligraphies of Fou'ad Kouichi Honda (see, for example, the introductory image to this section). The text is written out in its entirety with the letters from it creating a bold symmetrical arrangement. Alongside each letter is its numerical value, which indicates how often it appears in the chapter, and its position.
Ahmed Moustafa moved to London from Alexandria in Egypt in 1974, taking up a scholarship at the Central School of Art and Design in London. Here he developed his interest in traditional Arabic calligraphy and studied the rules of proportion that lie at its heart. He believes that 'the Arabic script, like music, is a finely tuned abstract vocabulary embodying universal mathematical laws, and therefore has the power to have an objective moral and spiritual effect upon the viewer' (Moustafa 1998: 12).