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Praise be to God, Ebrû, marbled paper with calligraphy, 2005
Feridun Özgören (b. 1942)
East Boston, Massachusetts
Water-based pigments on paper
40 x 25 3/4 in. sheet; 45 x 31 in. mounted
Collection of the artist
Photography by Jason Dowdle
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Feridun Özgören began making ebrû (marbled paper) in the 1980s, a time when only a handful of practitioners remained in his native Turkey. Ebrû, featuring calligraphy large enough to be read from a distance, decorate walls in places of worship and in homes to provide a spiritual environment. The majority of texts incorporated into ebrûs with calligraphy come from sacred Islamic texts. This ebrû features Thuluth script in Arabic, with anonymous calligraphy. Ebrû is made by floating water-based pigments on the surface of a liquid medium and then creating swirling patterns with a stylus or comb. Paper laid on the liquid's surface picks up the patterns. As the artist tells, "Fascinating things happen the minute you drop the ox gall. So many . . . factors are involved - the humidity, the dust, the pigments, and the size; it's a complicated process."
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