A remarkable compilation of 33 art pieces of Tajammul Hussainʼs collection “Illuminating The Word” will be exhibited at Athr gallery starting May 18 to June 10, 2010.
Tajammul Hussain is a largely self-taught artist, but his move from a career as a Chartered Accountant to that of a painter is due to the influence of a number of different people, over a significant period of time. First there was Hossain Vagehfi, Director of the Iranian Tobacco Company, who, realizing that Tajammul could paint, gave him his first lessons in Arabic calligraphy in 1978-79.
Tajammul has had a number of solo exhibitions – in Glasgow, Oxford and London, Tunisia and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has participated in-group exhibitions in Muscat, Oman, London. Examples of his work can be found in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, Glasgow museums, the British Museum, the National Library in Lahore and in the Tunisian State Collection.
As a lecturer in the art of the Quran, he teaches regularly at the VITA department at the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts, at graduate and postgraduate levels. Through the British Council, he has taught regularly at the National College of Arts in Lahore. He has also given a number of public lectures both in the UK and overseas.
Tajammul’s aim is to give visual expression to the Verses of the Holy Quran, the paintings presented here are designed to illuminate the Word and put particular stress on the interconnection between calligraphy and illumination. For this purpose he uses traditional and contemporary approaches. He confines his work to traditional Arabic scripts – kufic, thulth, muhaqqaq. He has no ambitions to develop a new style. This is because he wants the viewer to be able to relate to the text in the traditional way, using one or more of the beautiful styles of calligraphy developed by the great masters of the past. This of course leads to great clarity in the Arabic text itself, and Tajammul’s aim is to make that text, and the painting, which contains it, wholly accessible to the viewer. In his earlier paintings Tajammul showed a particular interest in the geometric designs. Then he developed interest in different papers and textures, some with textile-like qualities.
However, in Tajammul’s work the emphasis is on illumination rather than on the script per se. The artist gives more importance to the usage of pattern, colour and design to reaffirm and illustrate the complexity and depth of the Quranic Verses. Pattern and colour are no longer simply decorative elements, an accessory or just a simple aesthetic solution. In his approach to calligraphy he draws heavily on the writings of Martin Lings, particularly in Lings understanding of colour symbolism. Thus, through Lings, he sees blue as the colour of the Infinite and identical with Mercy, and gold as the colour of the Spirit, like the radiant sun. From this starting point he develops other colour symbols – black for Judgement, purple for God’s sovereignty, and so on. As the caption to each painting makes clear, the symbolic quality of the colours, and of course the designs, are there to clarify the meaning of the text, to reaffirm and illustrate the complexity and depth of the Quranic verses. They add those emphases, which he, as an artist, wants particularly to draw out of the text. They are therefore of fundamental importance: for the painter is acting, as it were, as the interpreter of the text of the Quran, the channel by which it can be more fully appreciated by the viewer. That is a great responsibility, and one to which Tajammul has bent his energies, and one to which he has dedicated his individual, artistic creativity.
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18 May – 10 June
Tajammul Hussain
Athr Gallery
Address:
5th Floor, Business Center – Wing B, Serafi Mega Mall,
Tahlia Street, Jeddah, KSA
Tel. +966 (0) 2 2845009
Mob. +966 56 8658888
www.athrart.com | info@athrart.com
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