Since 2021, Monia Ben Hamouda has developed a distinctive sculptural language through monumental laser-cut steel forms that constitute the foundation of her ongoing series Aniconism as Figuration Urgency. Though abstract, these shapes mimic the fluidity of Arabic script, recalling the artist’s childhood calligraphy lessons while resisting semantic meaning. At times, the forms morph into fragmented figuration, probing the tensions and limits of aniconism within Islamic visual traditions. Once installed, Ben Hamouda dusts the sculptures with layers of spices and pigments that gradually settle onto the floor, marked by traces of touch and movement. These spectral metal sculptures become vessels for a personal ritual of protection, rooted in inherited familial practices and the symbolic power of powdered matter.

In Allies Composition IV (Aniconism as Figuration Urgency), the artist continues her exploration of abstraction as both evasion and revelation. Borrowing from the tradition of aniconism in Islamic visual culture, she mobilizes historical strategies that circumvent direct figuration while embedding hidden forms within suspended steel structures. Simultaneously monumental and ephemeral, the sculptures are coated with layers of fragrant spices, whose tactile presence evokes medicinal, ceremonial, and culinary practices transmitted across generations and geographies.

Working through the tension between ornament and representation, Ben Hamouda investigates the intersections of Middle Eastern and Western European visual histories. Inspired by Najdi poetry—a vernacular poetic tradition that emerged in the Arabian Peninsula during the 16th century—she approaches language as a mutable and unstable form. In this context, poetry circulates like a traveling voice, becoming material and rhythm.

Challenging gravity, this spice-covered steel sculpture is suspended in the space, inviting viewers into an act of interpretation or reading that may ultimately remain inaccessible.