Jaali—Only from the heart can you touch the sky. —Rumi
2022
MDF screen carvings, wood, & enamel paint; 10’ x 12’ x 14’
Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center
Oklahoma City
Jaali (Urdu for ‘screens’) is an iteration of the Jaali series I started in 2012 with screen carvings of Islamic geometric patterns. I based the series on carved Islamic geometric patterns evoking Islamic architecture, which for me represented my cultural heritage. The Islamic geometric patterns are designed from a circle that is the symbol of unity. The multiple divisions of the circle create the variety of designs representing multiplicity within unity, and infinity in their continuous repetition, and harmony. The screen carvings dissolve the material surface representing the spiritual within the material. As the life I had built as an immigrant to the United States fell apart, I broke the screens I had designed, reassembling them into new structures. At a time of trauma and loss, the reconfigured forms were metaphors for life rebuilt, of creating new realities from broken parts, evoking hope, vision for a future, transcendence.
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