Sharifah Zuriah Aljeffri

Sharifah Zuriah Aljeffri

Sharifah Zuriah Aljeffri from Malaysia uses Arabic calligraphy to make "statement" or to "put across certain messages." Though not a calligrapher per se, the use of inscription in her art helps her project her personal symbiosis between her Southeast Asian Malaysian heritage and her connection with the global Muslim community. As an artist who is very aware of her socio-political environment, her art encompasses the emotive aspect of life and the legalistic factors that regulate society.

She studied at Father Barre's Convent School and the Sultan Abdul Hamid Collage in Kedah. She next completed courses in Roman Law, Constitutional Law, Legal History and Criminal Law from Inner Temple, London and then received a diploma in Public Relations from the Institute of Public Relation Malaysia. In 1976 she studied Chinese brush paintings from the Malaysian artist Anthony Sum.

Currently she is an artist-in-residence, cultural specialist and Public Relations consultant to the National Art Gallery in Malaysia. Previously she has been Cultural Affairs Advisor for the U.S. Information Service, American Embassy (Kuala Lumpur) and has been a primary school teacher as well. She has worked as a curator for several exhibitions in Malaysia.

Zuriah has also been involved in theater productions together with organizing seminars and workshops on issues dealing with woman and Islam She is a founding member of Sisters in Islam, a group that seeks to ameliorate the condition of woman She was a panelist on "Rethinking Women and Human Rights" at the Middle-East Studies Association meeting at Chapel Hill, North Carolina USA in 1993 and participated in the NGO Forumm on Woman, Beijing '95 in Huairou, China (1995). Since 1978 she has been advisor to the Juvenile Court. Additionally, she has adjudicated several national and international arts competition. She was appointed Nominator for the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Fifth Cycle, 1991. Since 1990 she is the Regional Representitive, Southeast Asia for the Islamic Arts Foundation Journal Arts & the Islamic World, London, and was the Resource person at the International Art Forum to plan the 1996 Asia-Pasific Triennial of Contemporary Art at the Queensland Art Gallery, Australia. Her paintings are in many private and public collections including the permanent collection, of the National Art Gallery, National Bank of Malaysia, the Kedah State Art Gallery, Malayan Banking and University of Malaya.

Her keen participation in various Socio Cultural Concerns become evident in her artistic work which is a reflection of the connection she experienced with various events, accidents, hopes, fears, triumphs and tribulations of the people around her. Existential questions are asked and responded in her art. What is human responsibitlity? Why does society injure and destroy? Can there be global harmony? In 1992 Sharifah began to use Arabic calligraphy with Chinese brush technique to express "the pain, anger, shock, and indignation over the astrocities committed around the world, expecially Bosnia Herzegovina." The writing in her paintgs imparts an aspiration for sanity or common sense in a chaotic world bereft of all compassion and humanity. The words, embraced from the Qur'an, project a notion of transcendence or lucidty which could perchance prevail over the anarchy. She "turns to the Qur'an to realign her bearings and to put her trust in that Divine direction. To listen to the temper of time so she too may sing the cries of human suffering." Her philosophy is reflected in the statement: "Her art and her life merge as ONE. She remains faithful to this call, this silent singular communion with the cosmos."

The colors in her paintings represent myriad emotive pronouncements, positive as well as ambivalent. The color red represents blood which symbolizes both life and death. It also suggest prosperity. Black denotes mystery, also suggest a loss when darkness is experienced, light and joy is appreciated. Yellow indicates hope, essentioally required to survive the traumas of life, to have the encouragement to avait new beginnings. Green gives meaning to existence, it symbolizes Nature and Freshness. Blue represents Earth, the termination of all existence and the beginning of another life. Four of Zuriah's works have been included in the current exhibition.

1. Bosnia 29, 1993
Scroll, Print on paper,
17 3/4 x 37 3/4"
Courtesy of the Artist

In this scroll titled: Bosnia 29, the background projects the multitude of victims and the clutter, turmoil and upheaval from the destruction of life and property. In the left corner the flight of birds reflects the "flight" of decency, civilization and goodwill. Amidst this bleak scenario, the letters Ha-Mim elicit a glimmer of hope, the possibility of healing with the peaceful compassion of God. The bid for Divine Grace is an attempt to beckon the Almighty to heal and to structure, to restore life, energy and vitality. The inscription in black ink, denoting structure, is surrounded by splashes of red.

The paintings in this series were inspired and contextualized by the Arabic alphabets Ha-Mim- the opening letters in seven surahs (chapters) 40-46 of the Qur'an. For Zuriah they "address the conflict between faith and unfaith, truth and falsehood, revelation and rejection." They further denote the cycle of life, death and renewal; they represent both the beginning and the ending. Sharifah Zuriah witnesses and records through these letters the "confusion and frenzy of the present time" as the twentieth century draws to a close. Calligraphy is an attempt by her to reflect on the Presence of God and "to exorcise, to synthesize her pain with the pain" of the victims in Bosnia. With the use of basic colors only, the Ha Mim series of paintings "explodes in primal range and angst" - a sensation beyond words. The calligraphy provides a visual representation of the outrage as it draws upon the cycle of death and renewal in "shattered fragments of pigments and light."

Ideas and messages are captured in images. The picture is not only aesthetically appealing but is conceptually evocative. Art consciously elicits human responsibility and appeals to the sacredness of life. It makes an entreaty to stop the destruction and to forge harmonious peace.

2. Bosnia 35, 1993
Scroll, print on paper
17 3/4 x 27

This composition is similar in content to the first scroll but more stark, it has less color and thus less hope. A tight, dense image portrays the bleak suffocating imprisonment experienced by victims caught in the waves of destruction.

3 Rahim 1, 1995
22 x 24 3/4
Print on paper

The word Rahim is also copiously used by Zuriah. Al-Rahim, the Compassionate or Most Merciful, is one of the attributes of Allah in the Qur'an. Rahim also means womb which is a precious gift from God. It is through the womb that He gives life, and it is through the womb that generations after generation of human beings are born on earth. We must respect the womb and through this esteem extend our respect the womb and through this esteem extended our honor to all human kind. Yet, again and again, women and young girls are being raped, killed and maimed. The artist queries-"When will human beings realize that when women are violated, it is not only the female population of a certain community or country that is being erased but also the whole mankind is obliterated?" It is these thoughts that evoke the viewer to reclect on the overpowering presence of Divine Mercy in the blank fluidity of human affairs. With a powerful black pitch set against a start white ground with only the two red dots to break the tension, the inscribed Rahim focuses on the dominating authority of God's Compassion.

With a simple elegance of design the word Rahim is inscribed in black with two red dots. The intense color evokes the transcendent Divine Compassion which is a dynamic context of simple ordinary white life.

4. Rahim, ii, 1995
22 1/2 x 22
print on paper

Rahim, ii, like the preceding composition has the same theme only more intensely presented; human cacophonic conflict and hope of Supreme tranquility. Rahim is repeated almost as insistent visual litany ten times on the image over an obstreperous field of red, yellow, blue, green - all the colors are discordant and reflect the chaotic discord of form and structure- symbolic of a ravished realm. Rahim invoked would anticipate the descent of conclusive transcendent peace.

Explodes in primal rage and angst Black and White and Red for how can the ending and the beginning be other than black and white and red? Calligraphy is the word. Calligraphy is the reminder. For we often forget that everything has an end, everything is a beginning for the end and it starts again. Like art, calligraphy can only draw upon this cycle of life-death renewal in shattered fragments of pigments and light. Light travels in patches of yellow Hope at the end of the passing, in her paintings.

Without fear, without forethought, she etches the temper of the time and harkens to that inner guidance that constantly speaks to her. Sharifah Zuriah breaks with realism and enters with great faith into the abstract. For how can anything so scared like life and death, the eternal cycling and recycling of constant motion be communicated in real words?

The force that drives her art is like the force that bears a wasp to lay her eggs on a grasshopper she has stung unconscious, so that her children when they hatch can feed on the grasshopper without killing it. Sharifah Zuriah listens to the same silence and answers to the call of yet another divine direction to chart new bearings for her journeying. Her art and her life merge as one. She remains faithful to this call, this silent singular communion with the cosmos.

An exhibition of her paintings will be on display in USA from 11-14 November at the 1993 Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association of North America at Research Triangle Park North Carolina. Earlier this year (11-15 June) 8 of her paintings done in scroll specially for the NGO Forum to the UN World Conference on Human Rights, where exhibited a the Austria Centre in Vienna. Two of her previous exhibitions, in Kuala Lumpur and Sarawak, helped raise M$50,000 for the Bosnia Fund.