Title: J'ai grandi (ترعرعت)

Artist: Ali Arkady

Year: 2025

Medium: Monolithography (original technique developed by the artist), fractured limestone matrix, and lithographic prints on fine art paper

Dimensions: 22 x 22 x 14.5 cm (8.66 x 8.66 x 5.70 in)

Edition: Unique piece (1/1)

About the Artwork:

This sculptural artist’s book brings together an extensive archive of visual documentation drawn from fifteen years of documentary, journalistic, and artistic work across the Middle East and Ukraine. Upon reaching the age of forty-two, the work is structured into forty-two pages, establishing an intimate dialogue where each page resonates with a year of my life and the lived histories that shaped it.

Entirely realized through the original process of Monolithographya technique I developed to merge the lithographic imprint with the raw materiality of the limestonethe work takes the form of a "stone book." It echoes the earliest civilizations that carved their narratives into mineral matter, while reinterpreting this ancestral heritage through contemporary techniques to document an essential chapter of my journey. By embedding the fractured limestone matrix directly into the final piece, the work seals the irreversibility of the archive, transforming the print matrix into an irreplaceable, singular artifact.