Other Media on linen, ready to hang.
Signed certificate of authenticity.
This artwork comes with an external frame
Attarine plaster I is from a series of works titled Fassi Patterns
In Arabic Fassi means ‘from Fez’, Fez is an ancient fortified city founded in the 8th Century, located at the foothills of the Atlas mountains in Morocco. Filled with traditional artisans, markets, mosques and madrasas, stepping inside its walls is like stepping back in time.
Fassi Patterns features hand-made blueprint replicas of patterns found in Fez. They were made with hand-drawn negatives used to produce cyanotype prints on fabric. I made this work while living in Morocco and studying traditional Islamic Geometric design. I attempted to not only recreate the patterns but also to capture the texture and quality of the different mediums used to render them in the ancient madrasas where they are found; the hard flat surface of the zelij (mosaic), the softness and depth of plaster and wood carvings. This series pays homage to the artisans past and present who create these works and keep this tradition alive.
A madrasa is a traditional school and the patterns in this series come from The Attarine and The Bou Inania Madrasas.
Attarine means spice and perfume seller and the Attarine Madrasa founded in 1325 is named after the street on which it is situated, where you can still buy spices and perfumes to this day.
The Bou Inania Madrasa was founded in 1356 by Abu Inan Faris and is widely acknowledged as a high point of Marinid architecture and of historic Moroccan architecture generally.
Cyanotype is one of the oldest, photographic printing processes. Sir John Herschel invented the cyanotype process in 1842. After his death in 1871 cyanotype was used as a method of reproducing architectural plans and drawings in the late 1800’s and became widely known as blueprint.