In the beginning was the Word Print

This piece is actually a "historical fiction" as I imagined a fully-developed script for Biblical Arabic calligraphy from which the existing examples of 9th-century “Christian Kufi” used in Jerusalem might have derived. This type of early Kufi was never actually codified but offers some characteristic features that were amplified here to create a scriptural style. The text is John 1:1 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The design references both Middle-eastern vine-based ornamentation, and European treatment of versals with raised gold and tendrils. The materials are historical and prepared by myself: Gallnut ink, Gold leaf on raised gesso, shell gold, lapis lazuli, azurite and lac. This piece was created as part of a series, on the invitation of the Woolf Institute in Cambridge, for its 2022 exhibition "The Written Word".