word into art 1: sacred script

Of the various segments of the exhibition, 'Sacred Script' hews the most closely to traditional forms and content, with several work that render Qur'anic or Biblical passages into exquisite calligraphy in standard scripts (kufic, thuluth, naksh, nasta'liq, diwani, maghribi, etc.)

Many of the artists represented in this section are highly qualified in traditional calligraphic arts, having studied to obtain their ijazas (a sort of diploma) from masters of the form. Yet while their work will look the most familiar to anyone acquainted with traditional calligraphy, many are nonetheless striking and original reworkings of those forms. The two I liked best are these:

Nassar Mansour, Kun. Mansour is a Jordanian artist who received his ijaza from the great Turkish calligrapher Ustad Hasan Çelebi. This work portrays the word kun (the imperative "be!"), referring to Qur'an 2:117, "[God] says Be, and it is." Mansour reworked and perfected the severe, solo elegance of the two-letter word in a series of images over a period of several years.

Mouneer al Shaarani, By their fruits ye shall know them. We were both simply besotted with this piece--a verse from Matthew 7:20, rendered in a striking modern, graphic hand that recalls the forms of maghribi script. And the red accents evoke cherries, apples, pomegranates--some sort of sensuous fruit. He has a website with a gallery of his work, and all of it is beautiful--someday I would dearly like to hang one of his works on my wall.