Noureddine Aouni

Painted Letters searching for new Cosmos

It is not very easy to write about Professor Noureddine Aoun's personality but in the same time it is a beautiful challenge for me as admirer of Arab calligraphy Art.
The well-known Tunisian calligrapher and painter, having a long and rich activity as Professor and teacher, brings his own artistic style, structures, visions and mentality in the treasure of the mysterious calligraphic Art, developing his own ideals about the two important components : letter and colours.

Modern artist with a deep focus on the integration between calligraphy and painting, Professor Aoun' artworks offer views and dimensions that are properly artistic - a spectacular unity with perfect sounds and shapes.

I would call his painting simply a perfect symphony.

I am very familiar already to his Art thanks to my gracious encounter with his best student, the artist Raouf Meftah who gave me the chance to enter and understand the fabulous Arab calligraphy's world in the terms and sense of unique beauty and plenitude of meanings.
Noureddine Aoun' s paintings are remarkable for connoisseurs or simple viewers, as a colourful spectacle, embroidery and arabesques of letters in to unimaginable shapes and forms.
His paintings are territories covered on poems, stories with large windows opened to another planet.

Picasso once said that if he would known there was such a thing as Islamic Calligraphy, he would never have started to paint «I have strived to reach the highest levels of artistic mastery, but I found that Islamic Calligraphy was there ages before I was» ( Picasso).

Watching the paintings of Noureddine Aoun I understand not only its valuable artistic form but the entire personality of the Tunisian artist as a confluence between his visions, goals, aspirations, inspirations and his homeland.
Tunisia is one of the most spectacular lands worldwide with amazing landscapes, oasis, desert and sea, traditional folklore and poetical charm.
All this images of strange, natural, wild beauty we can discover in the paintings of Noureddine Aoun, artistically expressed by the painter, in words and colours, based on his feelings and motivations, as he declares «The letter for me, is a unit of composition and construction of the work, the letter becomes a symbol, a signal and a signifier».

The collections of Noureddine Aoun give us the opportunity to evaded in a totally different Cosmos, lyrical and so much emotional but in the same time stronger and healthier, an environment where Beauty is the Master and Letters are the symbols of perfect harmony.

Professor Aouni you are an artist, teacher and with a very long and rich activity mentoring many students - today famous international artists.
Can you tell me your special moments of your biography?
I am a Tunisian calligraph and lettrist. I obtained my master’s degree in Fine Art (graphic design and calligraphy) from the academy of Fine Arts in Baghdad in 1983.
I had worked as a professor of Arabic calligraphy at the Higher Institute of Fine Arts in Nabeul in Tunisia.
I have done several exhibitions inside Tunisia and abroad and I have recived awards by participating in several cultural events concerning modern calligraphy (in Tunisia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, ...).

Arab calligraphy is one of the finest forms of Arts : letters, colours, stories at once with a very deep meaning. What is your main focus while painting your artworks as an artist of modern, contemporary Arab calligraphy?
In my works of modern and contemporary calligraphy, I focus on the intergration between calligraphy and painting (when I paint I calligraphy and when I calligraphy I paint) to give calligraphy views and dimensions that are properly artistic.

How do you describe the ,,letter" in art? How much important and meaningful is in fact? And what are your own artistic wishes and goals regarding the calligraphy you are creating?
I say that the letter, this plastic unit, is capable of enriching the areas of Fine Art (painting / sculpture, ceramics etc.) only if we comprehend the history of Art and aesthetics well.

When I “calligraphy” I liberate of the linguistic text and I take care of the plastic one.
Ultimately my goal is to give the work an image reading instead of a linguistic text reading it has because the letter for me is a unit of composition and construction of the work where the letter becomes a symbol, a signal and a signifier.

Monica Mergiu