Being Held by the All Knowing
We all want to be held. To be held in arms that will care for us with forgiveness, mercy, and a deep and vast love. Many turn to religion, turning to G-d, to the divine, to be held by, to be understood. Often in many people’s quest to be held, there is comfort in holding the tangible pieces of beauty, holding the G-d, the divine, or just the beauty present in the everyday, in nature, in us. This piece explores the theme of being held in G-d,specifically in Allah as the all-encompassing, the all-knowing.
The Qur’an speaks of Allah being everything, creator of all, and in it all. English translations of this acknowledgement of Allah “as all” span from “The East and the West belong to God. Wherever you turn, you are always in the presence of God. God is Munificent and Omniscient.” to “And to Allah belongs the east and the west. So wherever you [might] turn, there is the Face of Allah. Indeed, Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing.” This piece features hands attempting to hold G-d by holding flowers, petals, and stems, grasping at pieces of Allah, of pieces of G-d.
As the viewer’s eye travels across the piece, the hope is that one experiences both sights of “grasping at G-d” and of holding on to beauty, of pieces of G-d. The eyes then rest on an un-human hand; a representation of a hand and only this hand holds the calligraphy that spells out “Allah.” This work explores the idea of Allah being everywhere and the strong emotion of how wanting to be held can relate to this idea of G-d’s omnipresence. This want to be held and knowledge of Allah in everyone and everything, is coupled with the belief that no human, no person can ever really understand or fully hold G-d, symbolized in the contrast of photocopied hands and the cut out textured symbolic hand. However, the script does point towards the photocopied hands that attempt to grasp Allah, pointing the way with its grace-filled letters to the presence of Allah in everything, in everyone.