Annihilation فناء

“Being wholly present in God, he is wholly lost to self.”
— Al-Junayd


Silver gilding, metallic rub-ons, ink pens on Canson paper 150 gsm. 50x50 cm.

Date16 August 2011
StatusSold
PrintsRedbubble
Limited edition: Screen print
Category,

Fanâ’ (فناء) is the Sufi concept of annihilation or dissolution (of the ego) that is also known as “death before dying”.

While making studies for this piece, I realized that if I stripped the letters down to their simplest possible expression, each one was exactly half the one preceding it, so that the word acted out what it spelled out (shown in the animation below). This astonishing discovery became the basis of my design, which both rotates like a vortex and is “dissolved” into black.

Creation process:

A penny for your thoughts...