And He is with you, wherever you are

ink drawn on paper
150 X 300 CM

2017

This work presents a visual construction of the Qur’anic verse “And He is with you wherever you are” by removing the letters entirely and retaining only the diacritical marks, dispersed across a large sheet measuring 150 × 300 cm. Yet these marks do not appear in their usual orientation; they are written in reverse, as if someone standing on the viewer’s side had inscribed them, placing the observer in the position of being “behind” the text rather than in front of it.

Through this inversion, the diacritics, typically secondary elements, become an autonomous linguistic residue, pointing to a missing verse and giving the viewer the sensation of standing on the reverse side of the scene.

The absence of letters transforms the white field into a space for the verse’s meaning to surface differently. The phrase “And He is with you wherever you are” is not read directly; it is invoked through its disappearance, through these small marks that gesture toward what was written without explicitly revealing it.

The work does not attempt to visually reconstruct the verse, but rather encourages a reconsideration of our relationship to the text when it shifts from a readable form to a spatial experience.

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