Perhaps my favorite aspect of Islamic culture is Islamic art, and their mosaics in particular. For this piece I wanted to fuze together the art form of Islamic mosaic and the discussion of the presence of Allah within our society today. For this work I used small pieces of photographs to create a mosaic within the Arabic word for “Allah.”

As the word goes on, the mosaic becomes less compact and more scattered. This signifies the declining faith and presence of the strength in the word “Allah” in society today, especially in America. I believe this is due to the negative stigma that has been thrust upon the ideas of Islam, ever since the turn of the century and the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

The very thing, God, that first bonded so many people, has now divided nations and caused war, because people are doing terrible things in the name of this God.

I used a red background to represent the violence surrounding the connotation of this word today, due to the terrorist groups that are supposedly “Islamic.” The turquoise-blue that is inside the word itself, I used to represent the peace and serenity that the presence of God is supposed to bring, that being the underlying reason for religion in the first place. Even though something can be surrounded by negative stigmas and stereotypes, the underlying truth can still be very beautiful, and that is what I attempted to capture in this piece.