"Mount the stallion of love and do not fear the path, love's stallion knows the way exactly. With one leap, love's horse will carry you home.”
- Rumi
The Journey is the solo exhibition of celebrated Egyptian sculptor, Khaled Zaki.
For Zaki, Sufi poet and mystic, Rumi has conquered both earth and time, with his wisdom that continues to connect cultures and generations. For Zaki poetic verse is a medium that is both peaceful and sublime.
Zaki is fascinated by the connection between movement and religious experience. Like the spin of the Sufi that, through a process of active meditation, connects the worldly and the divine these new sculptural works see the artist charter the space between heaven and earth. In these works, Zaki captures the meditative and mesmeric swirl of the whirling dervish and the astounding elegance of their steed. His Sufis, spiraling on horseback, embody the intimate connection between man and beast and the notion of transcendence through movement. Rumi was born during a moment of flux and conflict - the Western crusades and Eastern Mogul invasions. Zaki's marble horses might appear as though they are destined for a conflict, much like these warriors, yet through Rumi’s verse, they are reimagined as vehicles of grace and enlightenment.
“During the 13th century as the Mongols and Western crusaders marched on to invade the land, poet and mystic, Rumi, through the beauty and wisdom of his words, succeeded in invading and inspiring minds across the earth. He has captured imaginations for thousands of years without spilling a drop of blood,” suggests Khaled Zaki.
In his art Khaled Zaki mines myriad aesthetic sources from ancient Egyptian statuary to Italian renaissance sculpture, and Egyptian modernism. Between 1988 and 1997, Zaki perfected his use of stone and bronze in the workshops of Pietrasanta Lu, Italy, a community known as the “City of Artists” where he amassed his extensive knowledge and honed formal skills in sculpture making. Khaled Zaki’s art has been acquired by significant public and private collections including that of the British Museum. Zaki has participated in numerous international exhibitions and biennales including the 55th international Venice Biennial and the 7th Beijing International Biennale (2017).
