ABDUS-SAMAD BEN ARNOLD Ben Arnold Totem Variation Birth Ceremony     FROM POLLY STREET TO MINNAAR STREET Greatly influenced by his spiritual life as a practising Muslim, Ben Arnold's massive angular sculptures and semi-abstract figurative forms reach beyond the immediate realities of life in 21st century South Africa to draw on the more timeless realms of prayer and faith. An active member of Fordsburg's Muslim community, Ben leaves his studio five times a day to pray at the mosque around the corner from the Bag Factory. Ben joined the Fordsburg Artists' Studios in the mid-Nineties, by which time his reputation as a sculptor was already well-established, having started his art career back in the 1950s at the now-legendary Polly Street Art School with Cecil Skotnes. SWITZERLAND In January 2003 Ben travelled to Switzerland to take up a residency at Solothurn near Bern, under the auspices of Pro Helvetia. He was joined by Garth Erasmus from Cape Town and the two artists were housed at Altes Spital (www.altesspital.ch), an old hospital converted into an art centre. Their work there led to a two-man show and a South African night at the Kunstlerhaus, featuring dishes like pap and morogo and boontjiesop, made by the artists. To lend a truly South African feel to the night, Erasmus played the flute and other instruments like the Khoisan bow. While in Switzerland, Ben created a work called 30 Days (sculpture and collage), inspired by the religious month of Ramadan and the idea of fasting. The work featured a series of terracotta heads inspired by the shape of the burka that covers Muslim women's heads. Other repeated motifs were the crescent moon and a hand covered in henna patterns or mendhi.   Variation I The Chase Queue     THE SPIRITUAL SOURCE As a child, Ben was surrounded by Islamic culture. Being immersed in the local Muslim community he knew the terms and customs. But it wasn't until the mid-Seventies that he converted to Islam, after an inspiring trip to Nigeria where he had the chance to meet with Muslim philosophers from the North. "Islam is a religion of peace and, in this sense, the religion has helped me a lot," he says. "I rely a lot on my spiritual life for my work. Also, the everyday: the day-to-day dealings in life, because one lives one's spirituality. I've got a Sufi background and that's also a pool of my expression. Being a practising Muslim, Sufism is the art of being a Muslim. It's not just doing the rituals, but referring to the scriptures and the elders that went before -- great spiritual leaders like Rumi [Islamic mystic and poet]. I came across some of his writing in Switzerland where I spent some time with a lot of Muslim brothers from Turkey. He was born in Afghanistan -- lived most of his life in Turkey and died there." Although there are often oblique human references in Ben's semi-abstract sculptures, as a Muslim, directly representational art is taboo to him. It is a tradition of the prophet that Muslims shouldn't try to reproduce living beings, Allah's unique creation. "I am still grappling with those issues and gradually working towards pure abstraction," he says. "Ultimately, I am on a spiritual quest towards total abstraction in my work." KHOISAN ROCK PAINTINGS Ben is also influenced by the traditions of the Khoisan. "That's part of my ancestral heritage," he says. "I am inspired by the rock paintings of the Khoisan -- the composition of figures and the mystical feel of the paintings. The Khoisan people have rituals of trance, which you also find in Sufi culture." ART AND CULTURAL FREEDOM "Artists have a positive role to play in the political and cultural freedom of their people," says Ben, who has always been an artist with a social conscience, speaking out about the plight of the poor and never forgetting his own township roots. He grew up in Albertsville, "a lovely quiet township, lying at the bottom of Sophiatown squeezed by the white suburb of Northcliffe". "Albertsville was a peaceable town and people knew whose son was after whose daughter and whose husband was lying all boozed up near Aunt Amie's shebeen," says Ben. "That was before we were forcefully removed. Then we had to come to places like Klipfield, Nancefield and Eldorado Park." As a schoolboy, Ben instinctively took to drawing and would spend hours at a stream nearby his home in Albertsville digging clay and modelling animals. It was his father who encouraged him to pursue his artistic calling. RETURNING THE FAVOUR Having received a boost from his father to pursue his talent for drawing and sculpting, Ben likes to encourage and inspire young people to think creatively. He teaches art at the community centre in Kliptown, near to where he lives today. "These young people are the artists of tomorrow. I feel that if I can explain to them what I am trying to say in my sculpture, they will grow up with a better understanding of the relevance of art to their daily lives," he says. A CHANNEL FOR BLACK CONSCIOUSNESS As far back as 1974, he told a journalist at the Post newspaper: "I have chosen to be a channel of Black Consciousness through the medium of art and culture. Our people have been robbed of their old values, religion and way of life, thus giving them no impetus towards change, towards a better life, free of repression."