Love Carpet – Portrait Gold Edition

Description

First shown in New York’s reed space gallery, Letters of Love is a modern interpretation of one of Islam’s highest art forms. Instead of painting traditional Quranic expressions, Shawkat, an Iraqi artist renowned among collectors, often uses Arabic translations of more modern quotations. His exhibition, letters of love, includes paintings of the words “love is the only freedom in the world” by the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran or “a loving heart can handle the world” by Beethoven. The combination of tradition and modernity has created an inspired collection of beautiful artworks which will resonate with many audiences. Nabil F Safwat, an Islamic calligraphy specialist, wrote in the programme to Mr. Shawkat’s New York exhibition: “in his recent works, we can clearly detect classical scripts such as Thulth, Kufic and Diwani, yet in his new forms and compositions he pushes ahead with his quest for achieving a stimulating transformation of the calligraphy of the Arabic letters.”