Naqqash: One Word

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Dialogues

ⵜⴰⴼⵓⴽⵜᱨᱟᱥᱠᱟငြိမ်းချမ်းရေးهمدلی𞤔𞤢𞤥 𞤚𞤢𞤲احساسΕΙΡΗΝΗPauസമാധാനംಸೌಹಾರ್ದ思សន្តិភាព和ଶାନ୍ତି

Naqqash's newest series puts Sadequain in conversation with other masters of art: Kandinsky, Gond painting, Monet, Persian miniature, Leonardo, Escher, Klimt, Gaudí and Van Gogh. Some works step fully into another tradition: Chinese ink landscape, Matisse's cut-outs, Hokusai and the scrolls of Odisha.

Tafukt, the sun. Kandinsky's floating circles, triangles and lines gather around a blazing red sun that holds the Tifinagh word. Below it, two figures reach up together.

Raska, joy. A cactus that is also a person, arms raised and filled with Gond line-and-dot patterns, blooms out of the Santali word for joy while a line of villagers dances hand in hand.

Nyein-chan-yay, peace. The Burmese word floats like lily pads on an Impressionist pond. Two thorned figures lean in from either bank, and their reflections clasp hands over a water-lily.

Hamdeli, one heart, empathy. A miniature-painting garden with a gold sky and a silver stream. Two thorned figures on facing carpets reach across the water to hold a single cup.

Across the water

Monet's pond and a Persian miniature's garden stream: two very different waters, and in both, two figures reach across to meet in the middle.

Jam Tan, peace only. A sepia notebook page. A thorned figure releases a small bird from its hand; one wing is finished in cactus quills, the other is still only bones and hinges, with mirror-written notes in the margins.

Ehsaas, feeling. A human hand and a hand drawn as a wire-frame network reach for the same red point. Below them, a chain of neurons turns into a chain of weights, and the painting asks which one is feeling.

ΕΙΡΗΝΗEirēnē · peaceGreek · Klimt × Sadequain · 2026Two figures, heads inclined together, share one gold-leaf cloak, spirals on one side and eyes on the other. Their raised hands hold a crimson dot inside a gold sun, above the Greek word for peace in thorned gold capitals.Read the artist's note on sociobot

Pau · Salām, peace. A catenary arch of broken-tile mosaic, Gaudí's trencadís, frames a tree that is also a cactus and an alif. Its branches end in open eyes under the Arabic word for peace.

സമാധാനംSamādhānam · peaceMalayalam · Van Gogh × Sadequain · 2026Van Gogh's swirling night sky and wheat field, with a flame-shaped cypress. Two figures stand in the field and share the sun, and the Malayalam word for peace lies across the ground.Read the artist's note on sociobot

Sauhārda, amity, harmony. In Kandinsky's language of circles and lines, a yellow sun and a blue one overlap and turn green. The Kannada word for amity sits on a musical staff, played like a chord.

Sī, longing. An ink hanging scroll: mountains dissolving into mist, a single brush-circle moon, and a small figure in a boat with head lowered. The character for longing is brushed large in the empty sky.

Santepheap, peace. Matisse's paper cut-outs: two dancers, coral and lemon, join hands over a white lotus on an ultramarine field. The Khmer word is cut in white below.

Wa, harmony. Woodblock blues and curling foam, after Hokusai. Two travellers from opposite banks bow to each other on an arched bridge, under the character for harmony.

Shānti, peace. Painted in the manner of Odisha's folk scrolls: a vermilion ground, a tree of life full of parrots, and a lotus pool where a tiger and a deer drink side by side.

Two more guest masters

Some works step fully into another tradition. One borrows the blues and wave-foam of a Japanese woodblock print; the other the vermilion borders and animals of an Odisha scroll. In both, two who might be enemies meet in peace.

I

Peace

शांतिМИРਅਮਨසාමයԽաղաղությունᠡᠩᠬᠡઅહિંસાᓴᐃᒪᓂᖅ

The word naqqash returns to most. Seven scripts, seven ways for the same idea to take a body.

Śānti, peace. The word is cut in two and set on white and on black. A figure on each side reaches across the seam, and their hands meet at the join.

Mir, peace, world. The three letters burn inside a red sunburst. Below, a hand holds the painter's reed.

Mir, peace, world. The same word as a desert. The letters stand behind saguaro cacti, half alphabet and half landscape.

Two ways to paint Мир

In Russian the word means both peace and world. One version sets it ablaze in a sun; the other plants it in a desert, letters among cacti.

Sāmaya, peace. Drawn in one turquoise line on midnight blue, a figure opens its arms, and the arms become the word.

Aman, peace. The letters grow green and spined against a desert dusk. The artist's title: the cactus learns to say peace.

Khaghaghutyun, peace. A white line figure folds its hands over an open eye. The long Armenian word runs straight through its body.

Saimaniq, peace. The syllables are stacked as the stones of an inuksuk, the marker that tells travellers someone was here. Two hands reach in from either side to set the top stone.

Engke, peace, untroubled. Classical Mongolian is written top to bottom, so the word becomes a spine and its strokes become ribs.

Ahimsa, non-harm. A thorned hand reaches down with an eye in its palm. One drop of ink falls from a fingertip and becomes the dot of the word.

II

Light

光ज्योतिԼույսسحر

Suns, dawns and flames. In these works the letter is either the source of the light or the thing it falls on.

Hikari, light. The character glows out of the dark. A single white line below it traces the figure it lights.

Jyoti, light, flame. The page is split at a horizon. The word's headline stroke is the horizon itself, and a thorned figure above it holds up a single crimson flame.

ԼույսLuys · lightArmenian · 2026A dark figure lifts one arm toward a red sun. The word hangs above like a banner.Read the artist's note on sociobot

Sahar, dawn. The first light before sunrise. Gold letters sit under a sun that is also an eye.

III

Truth

ἈλήθειαމިނިވަންߒߞߏپروازSHELTER

Truth and freedom, and what it means to be held in place. The Greek word for truth means "not forgetting".

Alétheia, truth. A black form with a raised, many-fingered hand splits the ivory page. The word underneath is cut by the same shadow.

Minivan, freedom. Freedom as untangling. A figure pulls free of a spider's web on one long taut line.

N'ko, I say. Four bowed figures hang wrapped in a web. One black figure stands, tears the web open with a raised hand, and writes the word for "I say" with a reed pen.

Parvāz, flight. A scarecrow bound to its post at dusk, crows nesting on its arms. One crow lifts off toward the word for flight glowing in the sky: the bound one dreaming what it cannot do.

Shelter, refuge. Under a harvest moon a thorned scarecrow stretches its turquoise arms, and the crows perch on them instead of fleeing. A gold dot falls from it into the word, laid out as the ground.

The scarecrow and the crows

A scarecrow is there to drive the crows away. In these two paintings it does the opposite: in one it dreams of flying with them, in the other it lets them stay.

IV