The Evident and The Immanent

Concept:

This work was for my midterm project for Fibers and Materials studies course
FIBER 2000-003: Int to Fiber/Material Studies
taught by Melissa Leandro. This piece has a deep understanding of the manifestations of the two names of Allah: the Evident and the Immanent - الظاهر والباطن and how these names manifest in real life in an inevitable duality; in which we see in life between male and female energies, skies and earth, day and night, sun and moon, life and afterlife, heaven and hell, pain and pleasure, etc.

Process:

In the beggining, I got an inspiration from how the towel was tangling from the hook in one of my paintings; ‘Thinking About You While Taking A Bath’, *see below. I also thought “oh, such a feminine reflection for this towel to hang down this soft and nice way”. Then i thought about what is holding t

he towel to make it flair like that? and it was the hook. The shape and energy of the towel was different from the one of the hook/hanger! One is soft and covering, and the second one is set upright and “doing the work”; exactly like what males do.



Later the same week, it was not a considence that we we went on a field trip with Troy Briggs, our teacher for Advanced research class 

, to an art gallery, where i saw the painting below! Me and Troy thought: “oh! Maha! This is similar to the idea you were discussing for fibers and materials class!” - The painting is by the Moroccan artist Mohammed Hamidi - 1971.

The actual process to embody this feeling that i got started with buying a bunch of colorful fabric pieces from the discounted textile outlet store and mocking them on the studio wall at the school. Then narrowing down my approach to capture and refine the idea without that much material.

Then, I bought wood blocks, cut them and sanded them into a double hanger in the SAIC woodshop. After that I cut the fabrics, seem the edges, and covered the wood hangers that i made with the red fabric. leaving the pink one for the flaired piece. Last step was sourcing the beads and beading. Beading Beading Beading. Beading was so easy with the spinner tool (see pictures below). I checked out this tool from the fibers and materials tool shop. Then finally draping the pink fabric and pinning it to one of the hooks!

Critique:

This piece was critiqued in within the classroom filled by emergeing student artists together with Melissa Leandro in Fall 2022 (FIBER 2000-003: Int to Fiber/Material Studies) at SAIC. The concept of duality was fully acknowledged in the critique; some comments were wishing for the pink flaired fabric to be beaded; however, I explained to them that this is not how the world works! We are in full duality, The more we tune into feminine energy, we rule by soft and emotional acts (point of power); It is more like: simple and effective. On the other side, Masculine Energy has to do effort *Notice the pink crown I created on the pink fabric using pink pins!. Masculine energy is set to move and grind harder; because it needs attention from feminine energy. 

Exhibition:

Misa Sayeda’s (click to see Misa’s profile)
work - our pieces were placed inside this old bank safe! was a part of the interior experience. 

The work on the gate features Matt Bodett’s (click for instagram account) colored line drawing!