The Arab American News
RAMADAN 2011
16
Light, calligraphy and graffiti
merge into one with Julien Breton’s
work. Fatema Zehra from Emel
Magazine explores the artist also
known as Kaalam.
A
t first, the smooth golden lines of calligraphy
streaming across the page seem like an easy
feat; one would likely assume that the image
had been extensively digitally manipulated. How-
ever, this is not the case. This is the crea on of a
masterful technique implemented by French ar st
Julien Breton, also known as Kaalam. Kaalam refers
to the tradi onal tool used in Arabic calligraphy, but
also means ‘to speak’ or ‘to express’. The strokes of
light are produced by a technique referred to as light
pain ng, merged together with methods used in cal-
ligraphy – both hard skills to master and now known
with the newly coined term ‘light-graff’. Breton com-
bines the two and does it remarkably well; impres-
sively, his interest in calligraphy began as a hobby in
2001, ini ally by imita ng Arabic calligraphers. But
his passion grew and Breton began teaching himself
new techniques that developed into the various
faces of Kaalam we see today.
It is evident from Breton’s artwork that a strong
influence of Arabic calligraphy and graffi style runs
through each piece, giving his work an obvious con-
temporary feel mirroring that of street art.
The process of ‘light-graff’ adopts photography
and movement in three-dimensional spaces to cre-
ate works of light calligraphy. Each shot is produced
with one ‘shot’ combined with bright lights and a
careful process of capturing the movement of light
over a long space of me with a camera. The end re-
sult of each ‘shot’ appears when the photograph is
developed. Alterna vely, a similar technique known
as virtual calligraphy works with a camera and an in-
frared lamp. The results for these images appear in
real- me and can be seen as the piece is develop-
ing.
Notably each piece emits a level of energy that
adds new depths to the meaning of the chosen texts
and a movement that can only be described as mes-
merizing. Each piece speaks volumes, with the
streams of light overlaid on stunning landscapes or
architecture, o en less magnificent and more edgy
than the light that shadows it. The stark contrast of
two worlds es in together with unexpected beauty
whilst also leaving the viewer pondering in thought.
This experimental movement has come to dis-
cover a new expressive form of calligraphy that links
the world of tradi on with modernity, while adding
new depths of color and light; taking the viewer to a
world of escapism set in real life scenes of the o en
hard hi ng reality of our surroundings.
The world
enlightened
