Nja Mahdaoui (Tunisian, b. 1937)

In this outstanding large painting Nja Mahdaoui's signature abstracted calligraphy sprirals around a square format, creating a dizzying vortext of marks and movement.

Nja Mahdaoui's work is based on the shapes associated with the various cursive and Kufic Arabic scripts, but he is more interested in movement, the rhythms and the visual effects of the act of writing and the expressive potential of the morphology of letters, than the content itself. Sometimes described as a "choreographer of letters", for him "words restrict the meaning" (Rose Issa cited in Rochan Gallery, Jeddah Nja Mahdaoui exhibition catalogue, 1994). In most of his work, Mahdaoui remains strongly influenced by Tunisian cultural traditions, such as textile arts, but manages to harmonize traditional calligraphic styles with contemporary abstract art.