Idris Khan : Eternal Movement (Wall drawing no.1)

Sadler's Wells have commissioned Idris Khan to create his first large-scale mural entitled Eternal Movement (Wall drawing no.1.) within the theatre's upper foyer area.

Born in Birmingham to a Welsh mother and a father from Pakistan, Khan was raised a Muslim regularly visiting his local mosque throughout his childhood. As one of the few mixed-race kids there he naturally felt incongruous and with little explanation or knowledge of Arabic, Khan would recite his prayers to Islam over and over again - not really knowing what they meant or having an understanding of what he was being indoctrinated into. This experience has gone on to be a significant area of exploration in Khan's art, be it in filmmaking, sculpture or more recently, drawing.

For the Sadler's mural entitled, 'Eternal Movement (Drawing no.1) Khan references a particular part of the pilgrimage to Hajj called Sa-ee, where devotees walk seven times, back and forth between two mountains in the Mecca province. Inspired by the spiritual transformation that takes place as part of of this communal ritual, Khan draws from this continual movement, atmosphere and personal interstitial space it creates. By using a rubber stamp to repeatedly print the following poetical texts, Khan performs his own contemplative process of rhythmically hand-printing the text on to the wall in a radial formation:

'I walk from stone to stone, listening to my footsteps as they sink to the floor.
In this place nothing is spoken. I exist and moving constantly within an eternal movement.
Watch as the wind carefully shifts the sands of the earth into place.
You I could hold when all fell away from me'.

The ink varies from the traditionally 'protective' blue found in mosques to black, the sacred nucleus of Islam, the Kaaba which Muslims direct their worship towards wherever they are in the world. As with the pilgrims ritualistic chanting and circling of the Kaaba, Khan's text densely emits into a fractal concentric formation. It appears as a mandala that disappears into a dark vortex. Jung described it as 'the unconscious self'.

Idris Khan (b. 1978, Birmingham, England) lives and works in London. He has had solo exhibitions at international venues including: Gothenburg Konsthall, Sweden, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto , K 20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf and InIVA, London . He has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions at venues including: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao, Spain; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham; Andalusian Center of Photography, Almería, Spain; Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork, Ireland; Institute of Contemporary Arts London; Tate Britain, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California; and the Helsinki Kunsthalle, Finland. In January, Khan will participate in the exhibition 'Hajj - Journey to the Heart of Islam' at the British Museum.

With thanks to the curator, Irene Bradbury and Victoria Miro Gallery, London.

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