READ OUT Dubai, 2015
EQRA’ [READ], is a piece of the “READ OUT THE VORTEX” collection of artworks. The VORTEX is a very organized accident consisting of a spiral movement carrying us, shaping us, washing us and taking us within our own little Vortexes.
Just as ancient cave petroglyphs aimed to capture man’s complicated and symbiotic relationship with his environment, Warour’s petroglyphs evoke our relationship with our current environment and systems, societies, countries, politics and religions. Though we each live in this vortex of structure, each of us also moves independently.
Words are one of Warour’s biggest inspirations, they can come from a child, a teacher, or from the wind. However, Warour rarely uses words in his art and if he does, he makes sure they have their own meaning and philosophy, which is not shaped by the mind-set.
EQRA’ [READ], is the first word revealed in the first chapter of the Holy Quran. A consciously powerful word, it is an invitation to acknowledge, in the name of the greatest creator for passing to the light.
The artwork READ OUT was built using the READ word 355 times, the same number of days in the lunar year calendar.
As with the endless universal spiral movement, the artist oriented the strongest letter of the word READ ( ق Q ) in the center, to consciously ensure; to lead our attention in the right direction of the organized vortex event. Every single READ symbol is different, each having a unique character and its own iconic personality.
355 representations of READ, as a pictogram, have been written free hand using a squirrel ink brush, with no calligraphy rules but moving in an organized path in one unit, in one journey and in one vision; to see. to know. to believe.