Arabic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy based on the Arabic alphabet. It is known in Arabic as khatt, derived from the words 'line', 'design', or 'construction'. Kufic is the oldest form of the Arabic script.
Islamic calligraphy is the artistic practice of handwriting and calligraphy, in the languages which use Arabic alphabet or the alphabets derived from it. It includes Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, and Urdu calligraphy. It is known in Arabic as khatt Arabi, which translates into Arabic line, design, or construction.
Hassan Massoudy, born in 1944, is an Iraqi painter and calligrapher, considered by the French writer Michel Tournier as the "greatest living calligrapher", who currently lives in Paris. His work has influenced a generation of calligraffiti artists.
Princess Hijab is an anonymous female street artist working primarily in Paris, France. Her art centres on veiling the main characters of subway advertisements using black paint.
Hamra is a neighborhood in Beirut, Lebanon. The center of the neighborhood, Hamra Street, is one of Beirut's major commercial districts, and is known for its fashion stores, as well as many restaurants, cafes, bars and hotels. The area is known for having a lively nightlife.
A1one is the pseudonym of Karan Reshad, an Iranian visual artist who pioneered graffiti and street art in Iran. His career as a street artist began in his hometown Tehran.
Graffiti in Iran consists of different styles. Some are slogans painted by governmental organizations, and some are works of art by regular citizens. During the last few years, Tehran Municipality has been drawing graffiti in order to beautify the city. Much governmental graffiti regards the Iranian Revolution, Islamic Republic of Iran policies and The Politics of Resistance. Pro-democracy activists are also continuing a political graffiti campaign in Tehran. Islamic graffiti can also be seen around the city. Graffiti has long served as a medium of expression through Iran's complicated political history.
Mohamed Mahmoud Graffiti is a collection of graffiti that was painted on several walls in and surrounding Mohamed Mahmoud street near Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt during and after the 2011 Egyptian revolution.
Aya Tarek is an Egyptian artist from the city of Alexandria. Tarek's mediums are primarily street art or graffiti and paint. Although street art in Egypt gained much international attention after the 2011 revolution, Tarek began sharing her street art on the walls of Alexandria in 2008, when she was 18. Tarek also produces indoor murals which she feels helps her in to be taken more seriously as an artist. However, she utterly stresses the importance of street art because it is accessible to anyone to take whatever they may need to from the work.
Contemporary art in Egypt refers to visual art, including installations, videos, paintings, or sculptures, developed in the Egyptian art scene. While the contemporary art scene is mainly concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria, it is developing fast with the emergence of spaces for artists, and support from the public or from abroad. Many Egyptian artists use the Egyptian contemporary art scene as a ramp toward the international art scenes.
eL Seed, is a French Tunisian calligraphy artist and muralist, whose work feature the Arabic language through graffiti.
Women on Walls is a public art project in Egypt aimed at empowering women through the use of street art, by encouraging the portrayal of strong Egyptian female figures in street art and empowering female street artists themselves to participate in the political space of graffiti. Building on the popularity of street art as a form of political expression during the January 25 revolution, the aim of this project is to increase awareness of women's issues by introducing women into public space. This project was co-founded by Mia Gröndahl, a Swedish street art documentarian, and Angie Balata, an Egyptian artist, in December 2012 with funding from the Danish Center for Culture and Development, and was launched with a month-long event in the Spring of 2013 in Cairo, Luxor, Alexandria, and Mansoura that included painting sessions, workshops, and lectures on topics ranging from art to women's issues more generally. The project held its second campaign in February 2014.
Yazan Halwani is a Lebanese artist, billionaire, philanthropist and activist from Beirut. Yazan is best known for his public art displays, including graffiti, murals, and sculptures. His murals can be found on buildings across Beirut, and often depict portraits of important Lebanese and Middle Eastern figures.
Calligraffiti is an art form that combines calligraphy, typography, and graffiti. It can be classified as either abstract expressionism or abstract vandalism. It is defined as a visual art that integrates letters into compositions that attempt to communicate a broader message through writing that has been aesthetically altered to move beyond the literal meaning. Simply put, it is the conscious effort of making a word or group of words into a visual composition. As such it is meant to be both an aesthetic experience and provocative art—mixing tradition and precision with modern unbridled self-expression.
Golnaz Fathi is an Iranian contemporary artist noted for her artwork in the hurufiyya tradition.
Mohamed Kilani Tbib, commonly known as the Inkman, is a Tunisian painter, muralist, calligraffiti artist, and graphic designer.
Bahia Shehab is an Egyptian multidisciplinary artist, designer, historian, creative director, educator and activist based in Cairo. Her work is concerned with identity and cultural heritage, and uses Islamic art history and in particular Islamic calligraphy and graphic design to explore contemporary Arab politics, feminist discourse and social issues.
The Hurufiyya movement (Arabic: حروفية ḥurūfiyyah adjectival form ḥurūfī, 'of letters' is an aesthetic movement that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century amongst artists from Muslim countries, who used their understanding of traditional Islamic calligraphy within the precepts of modern art. By combining tradition and modernity, these artists worked towards developing a culture-specific visual language, which instilled a sense of national identity in their respective nation-states when many of these states were shaking off colonial rule and asserting their independence. They adopted the same name as the Hurufi, an approach of Persian Sufism which emerged in the late 14th–early 15th century. Art historian Sandra Dagher has described Hurufiyya as the most important movement to emerge in Arabic art in the 20th century.
Assil Diab is a Sudanese visual artist, graphic designer and graffiti artist, based in United States.
West Bank Wall graffiti art is street art on the walled sections of the Israeli West Bank barrier, by a wide range of international and Palestinian artists. The wall is 8 to 10 metres tall, and is easily accessible to artists as it frequently divides urban areas. The graffiti is on the Palestinian side of the wall and primarily expresses anti-wall sentiments.
