My Mother, Moroccan artist N.H.

To launch this blog it would only be right to start with the artwork of N.H., who just so happens to be my mother. N.H. began her studies with an academic background in Economics, at the time living in France, where she was raised. Following her initiation into a spiritual Sufi order, Tijani Sufism at 20 years old, which is a type of esoteric Islam concerned with peace, inner equilibrium, inward acts of spirituality and profound mysticism, N.H. moved to London with her husband to raise her young family.

After studying Fine Art at Shepperton College and going on to complete a degree in Architecture at the University of London, N.H. began to create abstract works informed by themes of transition, Sufism, and the patterns present in gyres of the natural world, at the cellular level and also whilst observing its natural tesselations.

A work by N.H., framed in our dining room, features sewn threads, angular sweeps of charcoal and a colour palette that evokes an intensity of melancholy, but also something of the human story: hope, perseverance and transitional becoming.

N.H. demonstrates intricacy, attention to detail, mathematical precision and sharp offshoots of sewn threads which give way to its antonym: freeness of spirit, childlike wonder and the unintentional turning of the human heart:

Below is another work of N.H. with infinite loops reminiscent of Arabic calligraphy, perhaps a nod to her North African heritage, and the final crescendo: a standing pillar, strange as the Hubble imaging which arrested the world and which captured the standing pillars suspended in space’s dark void:

Rigid and frustrated lines are juxtaposed with the wilderness: a hand forming free loops.

Finally are three wooden slabs featuring abstract oil paintings. Much like a Rothko, the power of the colour is arresting, inviting and to my childhood eyes who grew up taking it all in: mesmerising.