Untitled 12

Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi’s maxim - “The friend is another, yet he is you” - serves as an existential mirror, revealing through multiplicity the underlying unity of the human spirit. In this work, Ahmad MOUALLA employs an epic interweaving of bodies and calligraphic lines, dissolving the boundaries between self and other. Distinctions between “I” and “you” vanish: the friend becomes an extension of the self, as if the soul is incapable of drawing a clear line between itself and the beloved. Each face reflects another, each body a shadow of its counterpart. The sharp contrast of black and white deepens this philosophical vision. Black is not emptiness but a depth from which specters emerge, while white is the light in which we discover our features in others. This chromatic tension embodies the human relationship to self and world, where the other is both illumination that reveals us and shadow that accompanies us. Despite the presence of the “crowd” typical of MOUALLA’s works, multiplicity here coalesces into a single, Sufi-infused entity. Gestures and lines form a unified rhythm, while the Arabic script, integrated with the bodies, acts as a living artery connecting destinies - the words flowing like lifeblood through the canvas. At its core, the work posits that humans are only complete through the other, who reflects their truth. Are these friends, or the many faces of a single soul traversing time? The painting celebrates the moment of encounter as liberation from existential solitude, transforming friendship from a social bond into a vital, existential necessity, proclaimed eloquently through beauty.