« Every moment and place says," Put this design in Your Carpet! » Jelaleddin al Rumi , Delicious Laughter
« Ms Raoui embeds elements with subjective significance, like family photographs and illustrations, in panels that resemble the pages of illuminated manuscripts. Their borders are incised with an obsessively repeated motif - the name of Allah - that allies these diaristic works to sacred texts » H.Harrison, Art Review, The New York Times, 2003
Painting, writing, collaging, playing hide and seek with myself, scratching layers after layers, this is how my inner voice chooses to express itself to me.
Yes...I am listening...
The voice is thicker,richer, more complex everyday Someday it is as translucid as the thin air above the waves
Sometimes it is like the tides, high or low depending on my recepticity and ability to hear it amongst my own inner monologues
Sometimes the dhikr miraculously clears the channels, and the vibrations are strong, powerful, overwhelming
Somedays my own fear and doubts and personal issues serve as barriers between the message and the messenger.
That is fine too...yes i am listening on another level but still listening...it will become clearagain on a clear day...soon.
My life/art-work is to clear all channels, to submit to the sound, the color and the texture of the moment
It may take the form of childish calligrahy calling endlessly on Allah, it may disguises itself in a symbolic unknown langage only my fingers can feel and transcript. It may also be just textures, fabric, paper, layer of paint over other layers, re-enacting centuries of berber rugmaking instilled in my hands and blood eternally. Yes..."Put this design in Your Carpet"
I am all accepting, i leave my judgement at the door like my shoes before entering the sacred spaces
I no longer exist, i am sustained by that mysterious energy, always there, always present, which i choose to see, feel and honor on clear day of "visibilty"
The power of color, repetitive scripts, meditative gesture, inner mantras, hand on channeling is ultimately what i wish to translate. For the viewer to feel all that powerful love and light and its healing energy.
As i paint, like in Reiki, i receive, i am only an open channel.
I let life movement, like the spiral, take me on the endless dance of the heart and the soul.
As a result my being is fully nourished and enter a state of gratitude like after a prayer, a dhikr meditation.
Salima Raoui, January 2008
