Faatimah Mohamed-Luke is a visual artist and designer from Cape Town, South Africa whose aim is to reintroduce the art form of tessellation in a thoroughly modern way, utilizing plastic building blocks to create large scale artworks.
She enjoys challenging the views of materiality and what constitutes an artistic medium, while elevating the humble children's toy into a nostalgic visual feast.
Mohamed-Luke’s chosen medium allows for a playfulness and accessibility within the artwork and a democratization within the art world. Her need to foster accessibility has led to numerous public installations, one of which won a Loerie award. She hopes to constantly blur the line between art and design as she evolves and grows on her journey through various creative avenues.
Faatimah Mohamed-Luke’s work has been exhibited in South Africa, the USA and Europe and is held in international private and public collections including JP Morgan Chase and Amazon.
While on holiday in Morocco several years ago, I fell in love with ornate, intricate abstract patterns. It was everywhere - every surface was painstakingly adorned to perfection. I loved how much pride the locals artists and artisans took in creating such beauty and how much its citizens and tourists appreciated it. It spoke to different parts of my heritage - African and Arab.
It was the first time I had witnessed parts of my heritage living together so gracefully. This is where I discovered the art of tessellation i.e. a highly symmetric, edge-to-edge tiling using a simple porcelain shape. The porcelain tile used to create mosaics didn’t really resonate with me, so I looked to a more unusual basic shape. Playing with my little human, lead me to Lego and eventually to a locally manufactured block which could be made in specific tones just for me. My hope is to highlight and recreate the art form of tessellation in a modern way using plastic building blocks.
I have created landscapes, portraits and abstracts with building blocks, as one would with any other art medium.
What I love most about it, is that it is a non traditional art medium and comes with no expectations but it has its own unique set of challenges. I believe that challenging an already established environment and challenging society is an essential part of an artists work and this medium helps me to do that by starting the conversation, ‘But is it art’. I also hope that my ability to exhibit and make a living from my art allows others the freedom and courage to experiment with new media.
