A. Karim Lessy

My brother Ismael and I were portrayed by the art painter Dick Koopmans in his studio (Balk, Friesland - the Netherlands) in the year 1962. This had made much impression on me. Surreptitiously I already knew that I also want to become an art painter. In spite of this early notion I started on fairly late age as a self-educated person with art painting.

My sources of inspiration include poetry of mystics.

 

You created the night, I made the lamp. You created clay, I made the cup. You created the forest, the mountain and the dessert; I made the walk, the garden, the orchard.

(Mohammed Iqbal 1875 - 1938)

 

The Kaäba, an old construction work in Mecca, had fascinate me continuously because of its history and particular aesthetics. The cube, a simple but splendid form has always appeared the last years as a subject in my work. The rose has enchant me for quite some time.

 

The rose.

Sheikh Salen Goendrie Sjah Baba stayed some time in Bagdad and walked each morning with a young student across the square where there was always a beggar woman. She always sat at the same place. She was never surprised to someone. Her expression for request of alms and also her gratitude is to keep her hand continuously open. The student frequently gave her some money, but the sheikh never gave her something. The student had been astonished concerning this. But the sheikh answered him: Instead of putting something in her hand, we must lay something in her heart.

 

The sheikh brought a couple days later a rose which was just blown. He put the rose in the hand of the beggar woman and wants to go further. Then something happened unexpectedly: the woman was surprised and stood laborious of the ground, seized the hand of the unknown person, kissed them and left with the rose.

Weeks long the beggar woman was no longer see. The place where she had sit to beg, remained empty. But eight days later she sat at the same place, with her open hand to beg.

“Where did she all the time lived from?” the student asked.

"From the rose", the sheikh said. - (Qibla - 1980)

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 charcoal on paper      Dick Koopmans 1962

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