When Islamic Art Becomes Contemporary
حين يصبح الفن الاسلامى معاصرا
Beyond Ornament: Islamic Art as a Contemporary Language
This body of work approaches Islamic art not as decorative heritage, but as a living visual system capable of structuring contemporary artistic practice. Circles, geometric units, repetition, and symmetry are employed not as ornamental motifs, but as organizational principles that negotiate relationships between form, time, and meaning.The works deconstruct the ornamental logic traditionally associated with Islamic art and reconfigure it within a contemporary framework, where visual units function as modular systems—open to repetition, expansion, and spatial transformation.
Gold appears not as a symbol of luxury or sanctity, but as a conceptual core, signaling value, continuity, and visual concentration.Rather than referencing heritage as a static source, the practice reactivates the underlying visual logic of Islamic art within a fragmented and evolving Arab present. Through transitions between painting, wall-based compositions, and vertical sculptural forms, the work resists closure and asserts itself as an expandable structure rather than a fixed object.In this context, Islamic visual culture operates as a contemporary language—one capable of producing meaning in the present moment.
The project proposes an understanding of contemporaneity that emerges from within Arab visual systems, positioning Islamic art not as a historical reference, but as an active methodology for constructing the contemporary
The circle operates here as an existential field rather than a decorative form, where Islamic visual structure shifts from surface ornamentation to a spatial system capable of holding multiplicity, layering, and temporal transformation. Through the interplay of vegetal, geometric, and gold elements, the work becomes a site of negotiation between order and deviation—echoing the conditions of the contemporary Arab present.
Safe Zone for Memory منطقة آمنه للذاكرة
Safe Zone for Memory is a visual exploration of material identity, where memory is preserved through physical matter rather than narrative representation.
The project brings together textile fragments, ornamental patterns, and tactile surfaces, framing them within circular forms that function as protected spaces for remembrance.Each circle acts as a vessel for memory, containing materials that carry traces of place, culture, and human touch. These fragments—drawn from domestic, popular, and cultural contexts—are treated not as decorative elements, but as carriers of lived experience. Through their material presence, they evoke personal and collective histories embedded in everyday objects.Fields of saturated color surround these material cores, creating emotional landscapes that connect memory to mood and environment.
The contrast between structured geometry and organic textures reflects the fragile balance between permanence and transformation.Rather than presenting memory as nostalgia, Safe Zone for Memory proposes it as an active, evolving force. The work invites viewers to reflect on their own material memories—what has been worn, touched, preserved—and to consider how identity is shaped through material traces that quietly endure.
Unfixed Patterns انماط غير ثابتة
This work re-examines the relationship between Islamic ornamentation and nature as two visual systems grounded in rhythm, repetition, and transformation. Ornament here does not appear as a closed decorative reference or a historical quotation; rather, it is reactivated as a living structure that intersects with botanical forms and chromatic fields, generating a contemporary visual space that transcends fixed notions of time and place.
This artwork is part of an ongoing project that explores the possibility of liberating Islamic art from its fixed historical representation, and reintroducing it as an open visual system capable of generating contemporary artistic expressions without severing its cultural foundations.Rather than replicating Islamic patterns or ornamental forms, the project engages in deconstructing their underlying visual logic—rhythm, infinity, spatial extension, and the dynamic relationship between part and whole. Through this process, heritage is no longer approached as a static legacy or an object of nostalgia, but as an active conceptual framework through which new visual languages can emerge.In this sense, the work does not propose a return to tradition, but rather a forward-looking reconfiguration, where Islamic art becomes a source of visual thought rather than a predefined aesthetic. The artwork thus operates as a contemplative space, inviting reflection on beauty, identity, and the evolving possibilities of visual language in a contemporary global context.
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