In the creative universe of Wissam Shawkat, exuberant strokes of Arabic calligraphy and typography dance on the page. Peruse these thick swirls of ink and acrylic colors and you’ll find within them a wondrous coming together of classic letter forms and abstraction, a technique Wissam has mastered with years of fine-tuning. I recently sat down with him at Tashkeel in Dubai, where he then had his exhibition Disciplined Insurgence on view, his love of the letters was palpable as he spoke to me about his award-winning practice. “It all started in 1984 when I was in school in Basra, Iraq. My art teacher wrote four letters on a blackboard using a simple form called Roka’.
To see the letter forms turning into beautiful shapes was enough for me to get hooked to calligraphy for the rest of my life,” he shares. Born and raised in Basra, he lived through the Iran-Iraq War (1980) when political discord meant school would be closed for days. “We used to spend a lot of time in shelters when I was a child due to the bombardment. At that time, my father bought my elder brother a calligraphy book. He used it for a couple of weeks and then he wasn’t interested, so I took it and continued practicing on it,” he shares. “I’d hear the bombing and see all the rubble, so I used to find peace and joy when I would do calligraphy.
It was definitely an escape,” says Wissam, who moved to the UAE in 2002. What he sought refuge in as a child eventually became a profession he loves deeply. In his latest works, you’ll see the ‘Al Wissam’ style, a script named after him that has become an underlying thread of his art. “This started in 2004 when I was working at a design agency and we had a client who wanted a modern logo using Arabic calligraphy. I created the logo and, although the project didn’t continue because the client didn’t approve the idea, I personally really liked what I had done,” he shares. “I continued creating new forms of letters, but it wasn’t my intention to create a style.I’d do it purely out of the joy of experimenting.”
His latest exhibition included a mix of his series, showcasing the ‘Al Wissam’ style and his new experiments with the classic Thuluth script. With his own futuristic approach, Wissam feels the art of calligraphy should never stop evolving. “Calligraphy has evolved over more than 800 years, so why stop now?” He credits Dubai with with inspiring him to adopt a forward-thinking approach to art. “You see everything here, from modernity to heritage and culture. Maybe, if I wasn’t living in Dubai, I wouldn’t dare to do what I’m doing now.”
Photography by Aasiya jagadeesh