Ilyas Kassam
RESONATE SANCTUARY
About Ilyas
Born in 1986 in the UK, Ilyas Kassam is a London based artist and poet. Drawing from Japanese and Arabic calligraphic traditions, his works centres around the notion of infinity and the role language plays within the mystical experience. Ilyas is known for his large textual paintings on rice paper, that have a explosive yet meditative quality. He is the author of Reminiscence of the Present (2011), co-host of Karl Marx Does The Washing Up podcast, and was an exhibitor at the 2018 International Ismaili Islamic Arts Festival.
How do you start your morning?
Every day a little picnic
Sun collects the weather
To tell us we have this
Everywhere an everywhere nods to a never there
So long
Young one
So long
It’s time to put a sock on
One
at
a
time
Easy like snow
*
I wake up looking for my feet. I usually lose them in my dreams. I take to the earth, soil conspires to help my legs find their looking. I dig them deep; knees flexed and repeat the same movement, thrusting my arms forwards and back, 162 times. I push some air to one side and ask for it back; in Asia they call this Tai Chi, in the sea they call it Swimming. I wonder home and put the congee on the stove, I shuffle through some leaves, today I find one from Emei Mountain. I watch the steam find the sounds of Arve Henriksen – A temple is an unloved space, loved – I rinse the gaiwan – A sacrifice is best when wet – the congee looks at its bubbles and gasps - blandness is it own kind of flavour – fermented tofu, seaweed, crispy onions, miscellaneous chilli with ancient symbols inscribed on its skin.
Tea is ready
Congee is ready
I’m still watching
Siddhartha says life is only waiting and fasting and thinking. I would sell my thoughts for a longer wait, if I could. All at once is a special kind of biscuit. It's a sweet sweet day. I could settle for fresh pressed dew.
I take to the bowl, offer a god some language, watch the tea evacuate the unloved spirits; in the west they call this sweating. In the west the bread tastes like the back of your grandmas couch.
Once clean, I sit in silence and start looking for that ocean. Some days I find an ocean, some days I find a lake, most days there are just droplets. The best days, are when I realise every droplet is an ocean. The best days taste like acid, the best acid tastes like unfiltered water. I collect the droplets, and take them to my studio. Like all good water it doesn't follow a man, it huddles in puddles in the place you never thought to look. The water is there and not there, behind the couch and in each thrusting of an arm. I lose the water as I go to my studio. On a good day I say thank you.
Such blasphemy to be forgetful
written free flow:
Ode to Mama
Dear papa -
Take me to you naked mountain, and bathe my scream in your bosom / Dowse me in light and carve flesh out of my knowing / Let my howl be heard / Let its sheath sing in your absence.
Sell an Onsen to a beggar.
I am here.
I am
There is a there in every here less covered than her
All You are
You Are
Ocean
beneath
Ocean
Starfish
laughing
at
Starfish Playing kickball on Ocean floor
What meaning is there in joy?
You always ask the only question
The one that never pretends to have an answer
You always tickle the bones
That hang in empty forests So the horny spirits Can watch over
With lascivious eco – envy
Oh
So
Sharp
True joy in leaving
Moon Milk draped over Mulberry tree,
It’s not me
It's the you
inside me
A mini me
Finger licking good
How does your home reflect your inner world?
I like to keep my house clean. I don’t know how to keep my house clean. I don’t know how to fit the here is this, and there is that, and why is the green so damn green, all in one place. I don’t know how to use normal geometry – like a normal man – in a normal house – that is made of normal bricks.
I need a how to keep your room clean book – like the Bible, or Spot the Dog or an Italian dictionary - A sort of Marie Condo for Mummies.
But I would only turn to the glossary, and find a new paintbrush.
On a good day, I remember that story of how the scorpion stung the frog when he took the frog across the river. I don’t know if I am the frog or the scorpion or the sting or the river. On a good day I am all of them. I just know that no matter how many bibles I have, paper will hang from the ceilings, brushes with be dripping, scattered in liquor, and the blank pages will whisper.
I can’t say I would sell a whisper for a moth’s carcass.
I like a wall to be covered in instantaneousness no clavicle bare
Sheets of invitations draped to weddings of creatures I don’t know yet
I can’t say my studio is tidy like a kinfolk magazine.
I can’t say I’ve never thought about sodomy.
What does your creative process look like when starting a new piece?
Three line drawings draw themselves
Words hover
In water
Drips tell a story, for each ancestor to be entertained,
For each speck of blood to find its fairy love
Never again. Here. An always waiting. How busy. Your nothing can be. Too much light to be held in candle.
*
I role out a sheet of rice. The paper is crisp, alive, and almost speaking. I like it when there is a whisper. An angel tells you how to behave. That good kind of fascism. I grab a brush. Maybe it has feathers. I dip it in black liquor and let it dance in rice. I watch as the painter paints a painting, and I giggle, what silliness is this. What a messy dance. What a pointless game show – covered in droplets. Ooo those droplets, those whispering oceans I left behind your couch.
What does it mean to have flesh?
To throw it against the wall?
And
dance
without
feet
How do you end your day?
Everything holds its death between two fingers – the moon basks in leaving – sky darkens – bleeding onions – yodels –trees glowing – grass becomes light – it’s time to dance with sirens – to set fire to material – to watch paint evaporate – and coat the stomach in words – a single tear rips through the world – illusions split in two – the moon puts its clarity to cognac – Josephine Foster draws a bubble bath in stars – this is when you can see God’s thigh – and you feel alone – in love - this is when the paint cakes up and you can see the faces of all those you’ve loved
And the death falls from fingers
Frank Zappa has your child
The glass smashes
And I remember I am no one
As I lie in my bed
And wait for my feet to be taken.
