"Subservient In The Air Like Birds". First in "Accumulations" series. 30" x. 22.5"-- Sumi, walnut, & Windsor Blue ink on Stonehenge paper. Text is based on the Arabic, "al Rahman" , "The Merciful". The title of the piece comes from a line in Qur'an as a way of understanding surrender/submission (islam).
Untitled. Alcohol based in ink on yuppo paper. 8" x 11" Rendered with carved balsa wood
To My Lovers. First in "How do you write a love letter in American Ink?" series. 8" x 11"--graphite, ink made from recycled firearms, sumi ink, metallic acrylic & gel pens. Text is from Judy Grahn's long poem "A Woman Is Talking To Death". The circular mandala reads "we do each other in, that's a fact". White vertical reads "to my lovers I bequeath/ the rest of my life". Central Brush work is English slant & reads "To my lovers".
Mim. Part of "Connections" series. Arabic letter forms in the Thuluth style are made up of precise, interconnected strokes. This series is part ode to practice, part exploration of liminal aspects of language--the place in-between mark & discernible meaning. 30" x 22.5" Sumi & Windsor Blue ink on Stonehenge paper-- rendered with carved balsa wood.
Rest & Refusal--Inspired by Bahia Shehab's series, "A Thousand Times No," in sentiment & in the Lam Alif letter form (here in Kufic). 30" x 22.5". India ink, acrylic, graphite on Stonehenge paper.
"Without the Mandate For Conquest" Title comes from Toni Morrison's book "Dancing in the Dark: Whiteness & the Literary Imagination". It echoes her call for "a new critical geography... without the mandate for conquest" by applying it to a visual arts context. 30" x 22.5"-- Sumi on Stonehenge paper. Text is English, bent, bushed & rendered slant. From the last lines Morrison's novel Jazz it reads: "Make me remake me, you are free to do it and I am free to let you. Because look... look where your hands are. Now."
"A Meditation On Goodness" is part of the Love Letters In American Ink Series. 30" x 22.5 Gel pens & acrylic on mould paper. Underpainting is ink made from recycled fire arms, copper acrylic, & charcoal. Text is Jose Martí, Leonard Cohen & Arabic Kufic (bottom right). Martî's "Cultivo Una Rosa Blanca", occupies the white diamond & stroke (forms reminiscent of Arabic in the Thuluth script). It roughly translates as "I cultivate the white rose in June & in January for the true friend, the one who offers me their sincere hand. & for the cruel one, the one who rips my heart from my breast, I offer neither nettle nor thorn. I cultivate a white rose." Cohen's lyrics are an excerpt from the song off of his last album, "It seemed a better way". They present as a transparent, vertical veil & read "now it's too late to turn the other cheek". The bottom right patina is Arabic --mirroring Kufic script & translates as "there is no god but God". This piece experiments with vantage points--linguistic, spacial, & reflective--& changes depending on the viewers "position". (Literally & metaphorically)
Joins & Erasures-- Sumi, gesso, acrylic, metallic gel on Stonehenge paper. 30" x 22.5 Ink work rendered with hand-angled wood tool & wrapped with cloth.
Qalb (heart). Part of "Accumulations" series. Underpainting is iridescent acrylic & ink made from recycled fire arms. Top layer is cumulative chalk dots done in short sittings while caring for a friend in bad health, checking her stats often. Small acts, in love, mark making & gestures add up. While legacies & patterns carry a tendency to repeat, they also have inside of them their own deviations, ruptures, alternate courses. 30" X 22.5"
Jeem "Connections" series--16" x 22"-- Sumi & walnut ink on coated clay paper.
"Counterintuitive".--11"x16"-- graphite, ink made from firearms, metallic gel pens, colored pencil on Stonehenge paper. Underlying black brushwork is a line from Ruth St. Denis that reads "I stand willingly in the way of storms that all my dead leaves may swirl away & be lost". The same phrase appears again in the gold half circle. Thin overlaying circles in top left corner & bottom right are Billy-Ray Belacourt's, reading "To love someone/is firstly to confess: I am prepared/ to be devastated by you". Completed during lunar eclipse, May 2023.