This piece was born millions of years ago, in the form of two rocks I picked up in East London and on Mount Lebanon, respectively: the two lands I call home. I extracted the pigment from these rocks and brought them together as layers of colour to depict the Arabic word برّ which spells both “reverence, devotion” and “land, wilderness.”
I made 4 in total, each unique as the colour varies slightly from one to the other. The medium is egg tempera (egg yolk mixed with wine) and the gold is genuine 23.75ct gold leaf.
Creation process:
Watch me make this piece, from rock to finished art, in this 5-minute video.