BESTIARY
"My work is about image making and I made my way through the calligraphers territory because this is where I found the kind of images inexisting elsewhere.
My work may look like calligraphy because I use the tools and the methods of calligraphy but I am interested in the the action of writing as drawing rather than the sense of the « written word » . The act of writing, for me, is far away from making a «written word ».
I think my training as a painter inspired me a non conformist attitude towards the tradition of beautiful writing. Such a liberty was, is, almost forbidden to conventional calligraphers trained to worship the so called tradition. My graphic explorations in Arabic calligraphy was not meant to make a Revolution or what ever! They are supposed to witness my curiosity towards the act of writing which is the most popular form I know of image making.
Over the years, through different projects, I explored the possibilities offered by calligraphy as a tool to create images.
One of my earliest « exploration» was creating animal images, hence The Bestiary themed artworks presented here." - Hassan Musa
