The Spectator

🎨 Title:

دَابَّةُ الْأَرْضِ: الفَارِقُ بَيْنَ الحَقِّ وَالْبَاطِلِ
Dabbatul Arḍ: The Separator Between Truth and Falsehood

🖌️ Artist:

Shorna Abedin

🖼️ Medium:

Oil on Canvas

📏 Dimensions:

(You may specify the actual size here, e.g., 30 x 40 inches)

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📝 Exhibition Statement:

Beneath the earth, where light rarely touches and roots grasp the unseen, a veiled soul sits — faceless, nameless, and lost in divine silence. In this painting, Shorna Abedin summons a symbol far deeper than sorrow: the prophesied creature of the Qur’an, Dabbatul Arḍ, who emerges at the end of time to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Rendered in textured oil strokes and shadowed light, the figure is fully covered, devoid of identity, representing all of humanity before divine judgment. No part of her body is revealed; she is an idea, a warning, a whisper of what is to come.

A golden ray cuts through the gloom — not from the sun, but from the unseen command of the Almighty. It does not merely illuminate the figure, but exposes the layered soil of human history, deception, and the longing for truth.

This work invites the viewer to reflect:
Are we ready for truth when it comes?
And when Dabbatul Arḍ emerges… will we recognize which side we stand on?

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🧭 Themes & Symbolism:

Roots: History, hidden sin, deep identity

Light from afar: Revelation, divine truth

White veiling: Purity, universality, Islamic modesty

Facelessness: The soul beyond ego

The Earth: As witness and origin of divine sign

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💠 Artist’s Note (Optional addition):

> “This painting was born from a place of spiritual silence, where verses echo in the earth and truth is no longer a matter of opinion. I created this piece not to depict Dabbatul Arḍ literally, but to call upon its message — that truth will rise from the soil, and none of us will escape its light.”
— Shorna Abedin