Asheer Akram

 

 

Book 2

Asheer Akram

(Fabricated Steel)

4’ x 4’ x 4’

 

 

Asheer’s work has evolved through time as everything does. His recent work has been a formal study of mark making; more specifically, the mark making involved in the calligraphy of different cultures. He is interested in transcending cultural boundaries in the evolution of this work and studying the importance of the written language in the form of quickly rendered brush strokes. Asheer has been transforming loosely rendered brush strokes into steel sculptures.  In this work Asheer has been trying to capture the spontaneity of ink on paper in a solidified format.

 

Asheer does not intend to mimic the work before his own in this same field.  Bronze cast of quotes of the enlightened and religious sayings have adorned palaces and temples alike for centuries. Asheer uses these as a foundation for his work. He was first inspired by a trip to the Louvre where he was fortunate enough to run into the Aga Khan collection. There were several works that sparked his interest and led him in the direction that he is now moving. The most influential was a cast bronze hanging ordainment from the 16th century that held a verse of the holy Koran in light ornate designs. Although Asheer appreciates the significance of the saying that this particular work held, that significance is not intended in the conceptual make up of his own work.

 

His work is composed of these marks, however, Asheer uses them in a formal way and not as written, readable language. The ideas imposed in the calligraphic marks themselves are important to Asheer as well as the use of written language as a tool of discourse. However, the discourse he is interested in comes in the form of these final objects and what they convey rather than the discernible language.