Watching the Olympics I did this swimmer doodle.
Dead Letters (flash comic fiction/prose poem)
Based on Dante’s inferno I wrote and illustrated this small piece. The story is base on letters that you would never write and hence it is called Dead Letters.
This is also a pastiche of My name is Red.
I am the lost man, not knowing who I am or where I come from I am lost.I look at my reflection on the surface of water and see a middle-aged man I do not recognize.I see a ghostly dark forest, no path, no beginning no ending.I have no desire to move yet I must, but in which way I do not know. Have I been here, have I circled this place many times I do not know. I desire a past I do not remember. A past that never existed.
I am the she-wolf. I am the one that desires your flesh.The hunger never satisfied.The one that forced you to move.I chase you in your darkest hour.Haunt you whenever you find peace. I send you in circles till you become breathless. You see me in the shadows till you reach the end of your time. I am your fear. I am your foe yet I am your friend! You are who you are for who I am.
I am your uncle. I am the poet. The one who had it but lost it all.The envy of all others but destined for the dark abyss. I wrote poems.It was left unread when I burnt my books in my rage. I am the letter you sent to the past, somewhere where there are long carefree summers before they turned to dark winters.When as a child you held my hand, I gave you a toy gun and said, look we’ll shoot whatever monster comes your way. Follow me and leave this forest. Learn from my demise. Your home will then show its way.
I am your home land. I am the lion.Old and angry I roar in pain.You hear my roar and the sound echoes in the forest.I am the letters you write to save me. The letters in which you tore your heart caring for my children. Your love for me turns your head back but I am not the one who holds you back.
I am your faith. I am the blind childish faith that you once had.You left me here as I was. A boy standing here praying, amongst the ruins and to whom I do not know!Do not look at me, I was of no use to you then I did not make you lose nor find your way! I am the letter that you sometimes miss. It is when you ask would it not have been better?
I am your mother. I am the one who abandoned you.In time you learnt why I made my choices. Now I live in a place free from blame. When you became a man you saw me as a girl. But still seek the smell of my milk in the world and in everything that you seek. You have learnt to let go so I am not the one who holds you here.I am the letter you write for every woman you love. Each with blue eyes, or brown. Each a reflection of me.
I am the hostage taker. I am the image of you that the world sees.I am the mask of your skin.I am your “TH” becoming “T” or “D”. The foreign man who could not be trusted.The one whose language is the second language no matter what tongue you use.I lurk in your shadow but I am not holding you back.I am not you. Do not write to me. I am not you.
I am your future. I am the future of all men.Before me there is darkness.After me there is darkness.Learn to live or lose your moment. I do not hold you back. In your letter, I push you forward till you embrace me as a friend, but all in good time. All in good time!
I am love. I make you blissfully free any moment.When you are with me there is no you and I there is simply I. With me you are not in a place and you are not yourself so you are not lost. What has held you in the forest is losing the sight of me. Let go! I am the care in your beloved’s eyes. The smell of your daughter’s hair.A kiss on your bold father’s head. I am not a letter, I am not lost. I am with you always! Go from this forest and live with me!
It must have been watching Jane Eyre that made me draw this.
Abstract Orientalism (updated)
Abstract Orientalism, a set on Flickr.
Abstract Orientalism is my invented Art school for 2012.
This is abstraction with Orientalist gestures, forms that exist in eastern rugs, poetry and illuminations. There is also the melancholy, Romanticism and seeking of nostalgia that one finds in the eastern cultures.
End of Gaddafi
Finally the mad tyrant is dead.
I made this drawing on my IPAD back in August and expected his end then.
One thing about this is that such a violent end is not a good start for a new regime. Take my word for it, when a regime ends with violence another violent regime that goes from one revolutionary extreme to another takes over.
What’s more it is perhaps time to question all those Western regimes that helped such a vermin stay in power for so long, I mean it is one thing for the British PM to remind us all of the tragic death of PC Ivan Fletcher and the Lockerbie bombings and another when not so long ago we are remind that Tony Blair went off to Libya shaking the hand of this madman.
I saw so many from the generation of revolutionaries, bow down and regret the mad frenzy of their youth. The fever that left them blindly hand the golden keys of power to the most corrupt, backward elements of our society. These men and women living in diaspora, watched as their families transformed and scattered. Many living lonely lives, many wondering where their lives went.
DaGod style typography series.
Images are made from the phrase:I will throw my words until you listen.
This is a form of DaGod allegorical drawing.
The Mosque is in ruins, and the dogs that stand outside the Mosque perhaps scaring worshipers away symbolize the fundamentalists.
Let’s Talk
From my DaGod series.
Someone wears a mask and holds a household hostage, he insists that he now owns the house and decides the fate of those who live there. He insists that within that household you should let him play by his rules. You as a neighbour and businessman had a role in the affairs of that family. You sold the mad man the gun. You bribed the father of the house to the point that he had lost all traces of dignity. Now you are interested in the premiums of the policy that you also sold him and if that would continue to generate revenue. Your son says let them be, they are like animals anyway. Your wife says you should take a gun and be ready and call the forces before he comes and shoots your children. You had an unbalanced neighbour and because of your greed you pushed them to the point that their son’s madness emerged. Now instead of a friendly neighbour you have to calm down a madman with a gun who wants to talk but only on his on terms and this time he is holding an innocent family hostage and is a threat to you. This is no allegory, this is what happened in my country! The madmen are the Islamists holding our people hostage, and we watch hopelessly as they drive their household and the neighbourhood into destruction.
This Is Not A Divine Being
I drew this back in January but it seems more appropriate than ever. Islamic Republic or autocracy is pushing very hard to maintain the legitimacy of the religious leader equalling his word to the word of God, but I doubt if such rhetoric would fill empty stomachs or lift the unemployed youth that are ready to bring them down.
This drawing was fully done by IPAD sketch-pro.
