Artist · Calligrapher · Lecco
Raouf
Gharbia
Italian-Tunisian artist, trained as an architect. Through calligraphy and the scripts of the world, he builds bridges of dialogue between East and West.
“Art does not reproduce the visible, but makes visible what is not always so.”
About
Raouf Gharbia is an Italian-Tunisian artist with a degree in architecture and a passion for graphic design. He lives and works in Lecco.
He works with schools and associations on projects about calligraphy, identity, legality, integration and inter-ethnic society, and has exhibited in the provinces of Lecco, Bergamo, Sondrio, Milan, Lecce and Rome, as well as in Stuttgart and in Russia.
Calligraphy is at the heart of his artistic language: he has led workshops on Gothic and Arabic script and on the writing systems of the world.
What art means to me
Aims
A bridge of dialogue between East and West. Sharing the positive sides of the Arab-Islamic world, dispelling the myth of a clash of civilisations, spreading coexistence between peoples.
Themes
Integration between native and adoptive Italians, migration across the shores of the Mediterranean, democratisation in Arab societies, civic commitment to equality, freedom, gender equality and human rights.
Language
Arabesques, geometry and floral motifs; a formal, aniconic art. The alphabets of the world, from Arabic to Cyrillic to Chinese; the symbols of mathematics, electronics and music; poetry and sacred texts.
“O Man! Travel from yourself to yourself.”
