A participant of the International Exhibition of Calligraphy exhibited his masterpieces at the Museum of Oriental Art

Vasil Khannanov

Vasil Khannanov, calligrapher, artist, member of the Union of Artists of Russia, Honoured Artist of the Republic of Bashkortostan, and a standing participant of the International Exhibition of Calligraphy, opened a solo exhibition at the State Museum of Oriental Art. Kultura (Culture) TV channel has shot a video report on the subject, which we bring to your attention.

Vasil Khannanov’s exhibition opened at the State Museum of Oriental Art. Critics define the painting of the famous Bashkir artist as “culturological puzzle”; to solve it the viewer will need profound historical background knowledge. This series of paintings entitled “Remember Me and I will remember you” (a Koran quotation) is a perfect example of such puzzle. But in this case it also has a very personal touch. Culture News reports.

The title of the exhibition mentions God – you will remember Me – but for Vasil Khannanov the personal implication is equally important. These works are an appeal to the ancestors; in particular, the memory of his grandmother, who hid her old Koran in Soviet times and only in the late '80s, when the land revived its origins, gave it to her grandson. In his paintings, the old book has found a new life.

“The koran was very shabby, with no beginning and no end, it cost me much effort to restore the missing pages”, says the artist. “It's all photocopy, pages are worn, corroded, some pages are lost, and I just left blank pages, like in the Tawba (repentance prayer) section ”

Islam prohibits the image of a living creature. Creating his masterpieces, Vasil Khannanov follows this tradition. The texts of the Koran are surrounded by the artist’s emotions and thoughts encrypted in colours and shapes.

“I really like the idea of scroll on canvas”, says Valeria Porokhova, a translator of the Koran. “What the author does is he takes a Surah of the Koran, defines its thematic component, and with some emotional outburst gives it those colors that match the content. This is a very interesting technique. This is new in art”.

All statements by Vasil Khannanov have personal tone. In some of his most piercing works we see Arabic calligraphy in his grandmother's old shawl. Others have a trace of biblical scenes.

“In some ways it was an illustration, just an attempt to make it clear that all is one. All greatest books teach us one truth”, says the artist.

Vasil Khannanov admits that he did not manage to learn Arabic, he read the Koran in translation, but the Arabic script, in his opinion, by itself has a magical appeal and excites the imagination of the artist. The artist translates these letters, incomprehensible to many but fascinating, into the emotional language of painting.

Source: International Exhibition of Calligraphy