Kun كُن is the imperative of the verb kana, to be. As described in Cosmology and Architecture in Premodern Islam, “Kun (Be!) was God’s first uttered word, and kawn (the world) was the immediate
outcome of this utterance.”
One thinks long before tackling such a concept, but in the end I fell back on basic geometry (the closer to the source, the simpler things get): I found I could reduce the word in such a way that the 3 primordial shapes of square, circle and triangle were prominent. The star formation is along the lines of the shamsiyya (sun) motif which in arabesque symbolizes the first manifestation; it is a concept that can be understood as the big-bang, here issuing from the void.
Pencils inked in white to spare my eyes and prevent mistakes while coloring.
Flat color (3 layers of white mixed with golden mica)
A closer look at the iridescence
