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The dimensions of a yoga mat are 60 cm in width by 180 cm in length. Traditional Japanese washi paper measures 31 cm by 11 cm. Both are bound by their standard sizes – the effervescent rectangle of the former and the immaculate white sheet of the latter. Yet they both afford the incredible possibility of unfurling into infinite space. Whether engaging her body in intricate postures or tracing calligraphic strokes, Monique Chebli – equally yogi and painter – confronts her yoga mat and washi sheet with the same apprehension of the present moment that gently guides her towards a heightened consciousness of self and the world.
Her calligraphic drawings thus serve as the artistic complement to her yogic practice. Much like the printed paper of an electrocardiogram, they reflect a vibrancy driven by breath, which also serves as the conduit in yoga.
From the very beginning, Monique was passionate about drawing. As an adolescent, seeking escape from the external anxieties of civil war, she would spend hours sketching on the dining room table. Yoga came many years later. And though she devoted time and focus to yoga, drawing always lingered in the background. While writing her thesis, a culmination of four years of yoga training, she complemented her writing with illustrations depicting the body’s vertical ascent towards spirituality. Then during the COVID-enforced periods of isolation, she rediscovered the joy of settling down to create. This suspended time gave birth to drawings centered around waiting (the mineral realm) and the passage of time (the plant kingdom). It was during a calligraphy seminar in France that the connection between these two practices, yoga and drawing, emerged as a clear link. This led to a series of drawings she grouped under the title “Calm Chaos,” displayed by the Artists of Beirut platform at the Arthaus space as part of a group exhibition on the theme of slowness.
Each of these drawings, exclusively rendered in Indian ink and conforming to the same format, produces different outcomes to express a meditative state. Indian ink allows fluidity, and the outcome is left to the caprice of the gesture. Everything converges in this suspended moment between pen and paper. Sometimes tense, sometimes extended, sometimes resistant, sometimes yielding… the freedom of the stroke is guided by the breath, with the lines, colors, and circles acting as its echo. If the breath is long, the stripped-back drawing takes on depth; if, on the other hand, the breath is short, choppy, the drawing is turbulent, tight.
The aim is not to control or compose the drawing but to surrender in front of the paper and let chance dictate the gesture.
In some of her drawings, the stroke is repetitive, as in yoga or meditation, the repetition of a pose or the mental recitation of a mantra facilitates entrance into the state of thought abandonment (Ananda) of the Great Internal Calm, reminiscent of Zen, as opposed to that which stirs thoughts (the Vrittis). Like yoga, the drawings have their rhythm, a fluctuation between inhalation and exhalation, slow and quick.
By simply surrendering to the slow contemplation of her drawings, we too can enter a form of mental release… taking the time to experience this transmissible, soothing meditation. Drawing as meditation in action.
An article written by Maya Trad
https://www.agendaculturel.com/article/les-dessins-calligraphiques-de-monique-chebli-un-etat-detre
