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What do geometry, calligraphy and divinity have in common? Quite a lot, it turns out, according to a prominent Saudi artist who is back in Bahrain a decade after her first-ever solo exhibition in the kingdom.
At the intersection of three vast and divergent fields of study lies a world where Lulwah Al Homoud has lived her artistic life, and which she is showcasing in her most recent exhibition, Crossroad to Dimensionality, now taking place at Al Riwaq Art Space.
“It is so great to be back in Bahrain and at the same gallery where I held my first-ever solo exhibition in 2013!” the 55-year-old artist told GulfWeekly during an interview before her recent artist talk held alongside the exhibition.
“Since then, my work has been exhibited at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in the US, Munich’s Five Continents Museum in Germany, Jeju Museum in Korea and Amsterdam’s Greenbox Museum.”
Crossroad to Dimensionality is a deep dive into a series of Lulwa’s works which centre on script, symmetry and spirituality.
Each of her pieces is a journey she undertakes to understand and blend spiritual concepts and mathematical infinity, infused with her deconstruction of Arabic calligraphy.
For example, she takes the ‘alif’ or ‘aleph’ – the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and remaps it against the Vedic grid, an Indian system used for Islamic geometry in the 10th and 11th centuries.
The result is a reconstructed and spatially reconfigured symbol which is repeated multiple times to create symmetrical designs that always attract a second look and then draw viewers into the multiverse of her mind.
“I was always drawn to calligraphy from a very early age,” she explained.
“The lines always attracted me – Japanese or Chinese calligraphy as well as Arabic calligraphy. When my artistic side and my studies and understanding of calligraphy came together, it was like a spark. I began to enjoy what I was doing.
“But the way I work is not how calligraphy is normally done. It is not traditional calligraphy at all. I studied calligraphy not to be a calligrapher, but to understand the rules. I wanted to be able to manipulate these rules. There is no way to reconstruct something without first understanding its foundations.”
She also interlaces the theory of the proportioned script – called ‘Al Khatt Al Mansub’ in Arabic – which decodes the golden ratio within Arabic letters created by Ibn Muqla.
Present in a lot of her work are allusions to outer space inspired by the desert night sky, as well as the colours blue and gold.
According to Lulwa, these two colours are used in a lot of sacred texts and there is a very special shade of blue that is inspired by the colour the sky turns just for a few minutes during dusk – a tint she has loved since childhood.
“In Riyadh, I see this colour more and to be honest, there is nothing like the desert and its sky,” she explained.
“Desert people are very abstract by nature. The way they have faith is abstract. Their language, their poetry, everything is abstract. They have time to think and to meditate.”
Her work has an ethereal feel to it, concurrently modern and traditional because while her constructions build on the geometric patterns of the past, she wanted to “create new ciphers for Arabic characters, where the geometric patterns and the word form a whole.”
Inspired by abstract artists like Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Tunisian artist Nja Mehdoui, Lulwa’s work has been compared to Victor Vasarely for its simple appearance backed by deep research and endless creative possibilities.
Her creations are underlined by in-depth research into its abstraction and the theory behind such Islamic art.
One of her most extensive bodies of work encompasses the 99 names of Allah, with each name converted into a mathematical pattern and drawing – enchanting in its simplicity and spellbinding in the underlying complexity.
However, Lulwa, who studied at the American College in London, followed by a Master’s degree at the Central St Martins College of Art and Design in the UK, abhors being pigeon-holed as an artist who only does Islamic Art.
She added: “My work fits in with many different types of art; it’s abstract, informed by Cubism. It’s geometric.
“I’m not sure I like the name Islamic Art because you wouldn’t call all Western art ‘Christian Art’ but they always look at a Muslim’s work and call it Islamic Art, even if the work does not fit.”
Crossroad to Dimensionality is now available for viewing at Al Riwaq and runs until July 6.
For more details, follow
@alriwaq and
@lulwah_al_homoud on Instagram.
