Showcase

Ink, held to the light

Calligraphy is where Persian art learned to make sound visible — a line drawn at the speed of breath. The works gathered here grew out of the cross-disciplinary projects Bruce Nemeth conceived, directed, and curated, with the brush in the hand of his partner Behnam, artist and calligrapher. Walk slowly; everything here was made slowly.

Room I

Canvases

The classical letterforms leave the page and take on the scale of the body — gestures in red, white, and black, each canvas holding a single breath of movement.

Black calligraphic mass over a red cross-hatched ground — **Untitled** 100 × 70 cm

Red calligraphic loops weaving across a black square canvas — **Untitled** 90 × 90 cm

Long red strokes falling down a black canvas — **Untitled** 120 × 80 cm

A square canvas split on the diagonal — red gesture above, white gesture below — **Untitled** 70 × 70 cm

Small landscape canvas — broad red sweeps over black — **Untitled** 30 × 40 cm

Red on red — strokes surfacing tone on tone — **Untitled** 100 × 70 cm

sound before language —
the archive of what stays unsaid

Room II

In the open

The canvases carried out to where the city is oldest — set against brick, dust, and doorways, and photographed in black and white as the street moves past.

A canvas standing on the crumbling brick steps of an old house — **On the steps** photograph

A canvas hung beneath a barred window, a crack running up the wall — **Below the window** photograph

A figure blurs past a canvas hung on a brick wall — **Passer-by** photograph

A dark canvas on a mud-brick wall beside a gas pipe — **On the wall** photograph

A canvas set in a ruined window recess, half in hard sunlight — **In the light** photograph

Room III

Works on paper

Closest to the tradition: mashq — the practice sheet, written and rewritten until the words dissolve into rhythm. Torn leaves are stitched back together with staples; fragments are collaged; one sheet is framed the classical way.

Torn fragments of calligraphy on cream and kraft paper, stapled into one sheet — **Collage** ink on paper

Ink calligraphy over red and orange construction lines on handmade paper — **With construction lines** ink on paper

Close detail of torn calligraphy fragments, shallow focus — **Detail** ink on paper

Collage of torn calligraphy, kraft strips and stapled paper on a white sheet — **Collage** ink on paper

Two torn halves of a calligraphy sheet stitched together with staples — **Two leaves, stitched** ink on paper

A stapled calligraphy sheet laid over a spread of printed letterforms — **Over the prints** ink on paper

Nastaliq practice sheets spread and overlapping — **Sheets** ink on paper

Close view of flowing nastaliq strokes on straw-flecked paper — **Detail** ink on paper

A classical siah-mashq panel in a black frame with a mauve mat — **Siah-mashq, framed** ink on paper

Wall text

The projects behind the ink

Wordless

2025 · Colleague Complex Gallery, Shiraz

The inaugural exhibition of the gallery: action calligraphy, live sound installation, and video projection merged into one immersive environment. Soundscapes ran across fourteen calligraphic works; some four hundred visitors passed through in four nights.

Curator, art director & sound design — Bruce Nemeth

Forgotten

2025 · Dalan Restoration Studio, Shiraz

A site-specific installation inside a 200-year-old Qajar-era house: nine Persian mystical words whose meanings have eroded, returned to the rooms through spatialised sound, action calligraphy, and architectural intervention — two nights, a team of fifteen.

Curator, art director & sound design — Bruce Nemeth

A screen playing an ink animation, a calligraphy scroll draped beneath it — **Anima, the inner life — the ink, taken into motion and sound**spudWORKS Open, 2025

Correspondence

The gallery is open by email.

For enquiries about the works — or the rooms they were made for — one line is enough.

Brucenemeth@outlook.com