current Paintings (selection)

1. Untitled 1 I 150 x 180 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2024

2. Untitled 2 I 160 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2024

3. Untitled 3 I 90 x 120 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2024

4. Verve 11 I 120 x 140 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2022
5. View 1 I 120 x 110 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2020
6. View 2 I 120 x 110 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2020
7. View 3 I 120 x 110 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2020
8. View 4 I 100 x 120 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2020
9. View 5 I 120 x 110 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2020
10. View 7 I 120 x 150 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2020

Aatifi, a trained artist living in Germany, has developed a completely independent, reduced formal language from classical calligraphy. His abstract-scriptural art represents a melange of traditional Islamic script art and elements of modern European art. Intensive pictorial compositions are created from calligraphic fragments, twisted, layered and reassembled, which brings the interplay of forms and their new aesthetics, power and dynamics, depth and space, into the foreground. The fragmented signs are thereby reduced to their pure lines without any content. In this way a universal effect is created, with works that are freely interpretable and timelessly modern. (maba)

2018/2019 (selection)

1. Osmosis 2 I 150 x 200 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2019

2. Osmosis 3 I 150 x 200 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2019

3. Verve 12 I 100 x 120 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2019

4. Verve 14 I 130 x 160 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2019

5. Verve 18 I 110 x 100 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2019

6. Verve 19 I 110 x 100 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2019

7. Verve 1 I 150 x 200 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2018

8. Verve 6 I 120 x 100 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2018

9. Verve 7 I 110 x 90 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2018

10. Verve 8 I 90 x 120 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2018

’Calligraphy was two-dimensional and graphic by tradition. I transformed it into painting, integrated it into painting, connected it with painting, and not only with painting, but also with depth and space, and dynamics. That which should live, lives. Every stroke should be incredibly powerful. And I’m interested in the mysteriousness that makes up a form,’ says Aatifi. With self-made brushes of different widths, the artist applies numerous superimposed layers of paint to the canvas, which condense into ever new shades of colour. Fine graphic structures are integrated into the composition in rich contrast, contrasting the colourful, voluminous forms with the filigree lightness of the graphic line. (JS)

2017 (selection)

1. Untitled I 100 x 120 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

2. Untitled I 110 x 90 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

3. Untitled I 160 x 120 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

4. Untitled I 140 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

5. Untitled I 120 x 150 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

6. Untitled I 120 x 150 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

7. Untitled I 170 x 200 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

8. Untitled I 200 x 170 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

9. Untitled I 90 x 110 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

10. Untitled I 140 x 170 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2017

Aatifi has turned his back on classical calligraphy with its traditional black ink, using instead colours that he mixes himself from high-quality pigments. He varies the consistencies from smooth-flowing to coarse-grained solids, which gives each shade an individual structure and each form its own character. A soft, flowing brushstroke in the curves of the fragmented marks is contrasted with quickly executed, energetic, very impasto strokes. The resulting splashes of paint are dynamically distributed across the picture in the tradition of dripping. (JS)

2015 (selection)

1. Untitled I 380 x 600 cm (6pcs) I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

2. Untitled I 300 x 380 cm (2pcs) I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

3. Untitled (blue series) I 150 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

4. Untitled (blue series) I 150 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

5. Untitled (blue series) I 150 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

6. Untitled (blue series) I 150 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

7. Untitled (blue series) I 150 x 190 cm I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

In the summer and autumn of 2015, with the solo exhibition Aatifi – News from Afghanistan, the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin’s Pergamonmuseum, Germany presented contemporary art related to the Islamic world. Around three dozen works by Aatifi were shown. The highlight of the exhibition was an installation in the Mschatta Hall, one of the main attractions in the Pergamonmuseum: the monumental, early Islamic palace façade from Jordan dating from the 8th century was juxtaposed with two paintings by Aatifi measuring 3.80 by 6 metres and 3 by 3.80 metres on the end walls. ‘1,250 years of art in dialogue’, as museum director Professor Dr Stefan Weber emphasised. (maba)

to the exhibition page Aatifi – News from Afghanistan

1. Untitled I 150 x 190 cm und 150 x 120 cm (2pcs) I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

2. Untitled I 70 x 140 cm (2pcs) I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

3. Untitled I 70 x 140 cm (2pcs) I Acrylic on canvas I Aatifi 2015

Aatifi completes his dynamic formal language with expressive colour compositions. While the works up to 2010 were mostly characterised by intense contrasts, from chiaroscuro to complementary, the very close contact with his homeland Afghanistan and his regular trips there since then have sparked in the artist a longing for intense colourfulness, which has been discharged with great expressivity in the series of works from 2014 onwards in particular. The forms seem to take on a life of their own in their intense colourfulness on the surface of the painting, almost dancing through space and entering into dialogue with each other. (JS)