Athar (أثر) - trace, imprint, remnant, effect. Twelve miniature mixed media paintings on paper, exploring layered memory, Arabic script, and texture. Some take their titles from words that live inside the paintings themselves. The collection is now with Jacaranda Images, Amman, framed and hanging, where the miniatures can be seen - and collected - in person.
Each Athar miniature is 12 × 12 cm — small enough to hold in one hand.
The Twelve
The twelve are framed as eight works: six miniatures framed individually, and two sets of three framed together. Grouped works are collected as a single piece.
DHIKR - ذِكر
2026 / 1447 H
Remembrance. The kind that surfaces quietly, like writing rising through fog.
Framed with Ufuq and Sama.
SAHIL — ساحل
2026 / 1447 H
Shore. Where every wave leaves its trace.
TAFAKKUR — تَفَكُّر
2026 / 1447 H
Contemplation. One small figure, still, before the immensity.
SHAWQ — شَوق
2026 / 1447 H
Longing. Ya Rasul Allah - the yearning that calls out to the Beloved of Allah ﷺ.
Framed with Nida and Khalwa.
NIDA — نِداء
2026 / 1447 H
A call. Dakhilak - the opening of a plea that finds its completion in Shawq.
Framed with Shawq and Khalwa.
KHALWA — خَلوة
2026 / 1447 H
Seclusion. The mountain retreat - stillness sought above the noise of the world.
Framed with Nida and Shawq.
MUNAJAT — مُناجاة
2026 / 1447 H
Alone in the night, his back to the world - the whispered conversation.
QIYAM — قِيام
2026 / 1447 H
Standing. The vigil that rises while the world sleeps.
SU‘UD — صُعود
2026 / 1447 H
Ascent. The rising and falling of a life, kept in the sand.
UFUQ — أُفُق
2026 / 1447 H
Horizon. Where two worlds meet - the veiled heavens above, the dunya below.
Framed with Dhikr and Sama.
SAMA — سَماء
2026 / 1447 H
Sky, or heaven. In Arabic, one word holds both.
Framed with Ufuq and Dhikr.
HUDUR — حُضُور
2026 / 1447 H
Presence. Felt rather than seen - where remembrance arrives.
On the Word Athar
In Arabic, athar is the mark a thing leaves behind - a footprint in sand, the trace of ink through paper, the effect of a person long after they have left the room. The twelve titles are the vocabulary of the inner journey; its practices and its landscapes, from remembrance to presence: dhikr and seclusion, the night conversation and the standing vigil, then shore, horizon, sky. And athar is what that journey leaves behind. Remembrance marks the heart the way ink bleeds through paper. These twelve miniatures hold such marks - fragments of script, veils of colour, half-erased and half-preserved - built the way memory settles: in layers, keeping what remains when most of the story has faded.
Exhibition
The Athar Collection is now at Jacaranda Images, Amman, framed and hanging alongside the gallery's other artists. Each miniature is an original mixed media painting on paper, 12 × 12 cm.
The collection is held and sold by the gallery. If one of them speaks to you, do write to me and I will put you in touch.
Athar is the newest chapter in an ongoing exploration of Islamic spiritual heritage and the wider Arabic literary tradition - alongside the Hu Collection and new work exploring Al-Busiri's Burda, currently underway in the studio.