Woven Blanket – Nada Abdallah

Woven blanket by Nada Abdallah, from her exhibition Baynahumā: Between Matter and Time. Fragments of the Arabic alif, traced from historical Kufic letterforms, are scattered across the surface: at the top they break apart into pixels and points, and towards the bottom they gather back into recognisable strokes and curves. Finished with fringed edges. Available in black and beige or black and white.About BaynahumāBaynahumā (“between the two”) asks at what point a form stops being itself. Abdallah starts from the alif, a letter that looks simple but has taken many shapes over time, and traces a collection of historical Kufic alifs, each shaped by the surface, tool and hand that made it. The works then move these forms between line, pixel and point: as the outline breaks into separate pieces, the eye fills in what is missing, and the letter is recognised somewhere between what remains and what we remember. The same drawings appear in steel, acrylic, paper, textile, rusted metal, limestone and light, and each material changes how the letter is met. In this blanket, the contour becomes a woven structure.About the artistNada Abdallah is an artist, designer, calligrapher, typographer and researcher whose work draws on Arabic calligraphy, typography and prehistoric motifs. She is Assistant Professor of Visual Communication at the University of the Arts Sharjah and President of ATypI, and founded the FiftyFifty Traveling Lettering Exhibition and the Bilarabic Design Festival. Her work has been exhibited in Lebanon, the UAE, Greece, Korea, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the USA.