This piece was first pubslihed in Hadara Magazine

By Anna Seaman

el Seed spent the first 10 years of his career trying to escape categorisation, which for a man of many talents is understandable. So often referred to as a graffiti artist, the narrative that surrounded this artist as he emerged onto the international art scene was that of a b-boy or a break dancer from the suburbs of Paris who made his name by spray-painting buildings in a distinctive style.

It was true, in part. Born in Paris to Tunisian parents, eL Seed experienced a fairly normal identity crisis for someone with dual citizenship. He sometimes felt directionless amid his European and Arab upbringing. He did spend time in the hip-hop scene of the French capital in the ’90s, learning to break dance and to work with spray paint. But his now globally recognised signature style of hand-drawn, perfectly balanced and swooping calligraphic lettering was borne from a place of natural talent and a desire to embrace the Arabic language, which was both foreign to him and familiar.

el Seed in his studio. MIRAGE (top photo)—In the Saudi desert, this calligraphic installation was inspired by a 7th century poem. Jameel Bin Ma’mar was denied the opportunity to unite with his love, Buthayna. Mirage is a metaphor for this love: a love so infinite, ever longing to be reached and grasped.

“As a child, I only spoke the Tunisian dialect, but later I learned to read and write Arabic, and my relationship to the language helped me resolve and fuse my two identities,” he says.

He gained international acclaim for working in public places and painting calligraphy in a graffiti style—or ‘calligraffiti’ as it became known—upon the facades of buildings. In 2012, he received funding from Sharjah’s Barjeel Art Foundation to paint the minaret of the mosque in his home town of Gabes with a phrase from the Quran: “Oh humankind, we have created you from a male and a female, and made you peoples and tribes, so you may know each other.” It was a universal call for peace, tolerance, and acceptance. Although now the lettering looks basic as his art has matured greatly since then, this piece remains one of his most significant. It was his breakout work and it epitomises eL Seed the artist and the man. For him, art is a way of building bridges, with his humanitarian messages spelled out in the Arabic language so that they are illegible but still potent with meaning.

“I like to maintain a sense of mystery,” he says. “My artwork is calligraphy, not typography; there is a kind of romanticism in it that I love. I want to keep it indecipherable, to abstract it in a way, so that if someone likes it they will try to get into it. Making my art difficult to understand is more of an invitation to learn more about what it means and draw people in.”

This kind of connection to his artwork is why he chooses to work in the public sphere, not limiting himself to canvases or pieces that can be installed in a gallery. “Art for me is a human experience. It has the power to connect and unite, and when I make an artwork I leave it behind to live beyond me. What I take with me are the memories of the people and the place.”

Akin almost to social outreach, eL Seed has travelled all over the world painting murals that are now iconic, even though most no longer exist. In the Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro he painted in pink and black lettering on the roof of an art school. In the townships of Cape Town, he wrote the words of Nelson Mandela: “it always seems impossible, until it’s done.” In Lyon, eL Seed’s Myrelingues La Brumeuse was a 120-metre stainless steel installation suspended between two bridges along the banks of the Saône. On the Pont des Arts in Paris, once the “love locks” bridge, he painted a quote from Balzac.

PERCEPTION—Perhaps the most personally significant of all his works. It is an anamorphic piece drawn across 50 buildings in Cairo’s neglected Manshiyat Nasr district. It is only visible from a certain point on the Mokattam Mountain.

In 2017, he created a large sculpture along the security fence of the demilitarised zone that separates North and South Korea spelling out the words of Kim Sowol, a poet from the north who died before the country was divided. eL Seed installed the first half of the sculpture in South Korea, intending for it to remain unfinished until the other half was installed in North Korea. Six months after the artwork was installed, a historic meeting between Moon Jae-in and Kim Jong Un saw the two nations’ leaders share a historic handshake. The timing was serendipitous. “My work remains on the fence in the DMZ on the South Korean side and remains a symbol of peace. The fact that the two leaders shook hands a few months after my work was installed was significant to me although clearly not related to my work. I do hope that my art is always viewed as a symbol of unity.”

The true belief that art has the power to unite and that we are all connected is what drives the artist. In fact, one of his common slogans is “art is a pretext”, because so often when he goes to a place, he finds himself having a profound experience that goes way beyond the art.

Perhaps the most personally significant of all his pieces was Perception, an anamorphic piece drawn across 50 buildings in Cairo’s neglected Manshiyat Nasr district. The artist created a large circular mural quoting a revered Coptic saint and painted it across the buildings in the crumbling community so that it could only be viewed fully from one vantage point. When he got onto the stage to give his TED Talk about the project in 2016, the tears that welled in his eyes said it all. He touched lives with that mural, including his own.

“The words I chose to paint in Cairo were: ‘Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eyes first.’ I chose them to redress misconceptions and to reduce negative judgements being made about these people who live in a place where they collect garbage. However, even as I painted, I realised that the words were also helping me to open my eyes. Those people who are shunned even by their neighbours in Cairo and by those around the world are actually so pure and full of love that they treated me like family. I can never overstate the impact that this project had on me and, to this day, I still try to help those people however I can.”

LOST WALLS—Prompted by the reaction to his project on the minaret of Jara Mosque in his home town of Gabes, the artist set out on a month-long journey across Tunisia painting ‘Lost Walls’ along ththe way.

The idea of spreading love permeates his practice. In April 2020, his work was on the cover of Vogue Arabia with the tagline “Love will heal the world.” In November 2020, he opened an exhibition titled Templates of Love at Galleria Patricia Armocida in Milan. “In Arabic there are 50 words for love,” he explains. “It was a fact that struck me deeply when I first learnt it because love is not confined to a single shape; it has many forms, and in Arabic each carries its own name. I decided to explore that with this exhibition and I painted many canvases using lighter colours than my usual black. I wanted to give the impression that love carries light with it and that love is the most powerful force in the world.”

Although his message is often similar, underlined by an idealistic desire to spread love and joy, eL Seed has continually found new mediums, new contexts and new ways to express himself. Last year, he travelled to Murano in Venice to create a sculpture made from the city’s famous glass. And as part of the Al Ula festival in Saudi Arabia, he installed Mirage, a large sculpture only viewed properly from above. In December, he extended his artistic talents to the kitchen where he took a six-night residency at Inked Dubai alongside Chef Hadrien Villedieu. “Working hand in hand with such a culinary genius made me realise the power of cooking and how food, as much as art, can bring people together. You spend hours, even days, to create a plate that will be consumed in a few minutes and I sometimes spend weeks painting artworks that can also disappear easily. So, I think there’s a true link between cuisine and visual art.”

In the same way as a good meal knows no boundaries for its enjoyment, the artist also believes that his work has a universal appeal because of its use of the Arabic language. “I have seen the way people respond to Arabic all over the world, regardless of whether they can understand it. There is always strong emotional reaction. The shapes of Arabic letters are curved and rounded, which is more naturally pleasing to the eye compared to the straight lines of the Latin or Roman languages, and I really believe that anyone around the world can relate to them. What is important to me is not the artwork itself but the link with the people.”

Poetry In Motion