A pioneer at the College of Fine and Applied Arts in Khartoum, Waqialla is admired for skillfully adapting traditional calligraphic techniques and forms into a modern idiom.
The title "Husam alsalam" translates as "Sword of Peace." Since Arabic is read from right to left this composition seeks to revert the message: the point of the sword pointing away from the addressee and towards the speaker, like bayonets hauled down at the end of battle.
text in process E Harney 1/13/2003
Exhibition History:
Inscribing Meaning: Writing and Graphic Systems in African Art, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, May 9- August 26, 2007; Fowler Museum at University of California, Los Angeles, October 14, 2007-February 17, 2008
Encounters with the Contemporary, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., January 7, 2001-January 6, 2002
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