Asian Banksy Down Under, by Daniel Silk on Nov 6, 2008 0:03:49 GMT 1, www.theasiannews.co.uk/news/s/1077914_alis_doodling_down_under

Ali's doodling Down Under
5/11/2008

THE UK Asian communities answer to the famous graffiti artist Banksy has been 'doodling' Down Under.
Mohammed Ali, who also goes under the name of Aerosol Arabic, has been painting grand murals promoting peace in Australia’s major cities.
Mohammed has painted murals all over the UK but has yet to find the fame of Bristol-born Banksy, whose quirky, anti-establishment wall murals now sell for £100,000s.
Once a self-confessed unlicensed street artist, Mohammed rediscovered his faith during his university years and fused his beliefs with his primary passion for graffiti art.
The result has been imagery exploring the relationship between being a young Muslim and living in a society as diverse in faith and culture as it is in social difference.
He said: "I make it crystal clear to the young people I work with that I don't support illegal graffiti, but that I promote the techniques of street art.
"Aerosol art is like art spilling from the galleries; it brings positive messages to the people who don't go to conventional art spaces."
"It is graffiti, the most Western art form you can think of, together with Islamic script. Looking at it you wouldn't see any clash - it's taking the best of both those worlds.
“I'm not using Islamic text to promote religion," explained Mohammed, who has in the last year already painted murals across Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago and New York.
"I am using street art as a medium to bring people together, to achieve an understanding of each other. I always try to make it clear that Muslims and Islam are two different things, and what some Muslims do is not necessarily Islam."
Invited and sponsored by the British Council Australia - as part of the International Arts Festival and primarily sponsored by the State Government - Mohammed began his Australian artistic debut in Sydney, where he gave a striking demonstration of his unique blend of street art and Islamic sacred text to students at the Al-Ghazzali Centre in Lakemba; producing a four-by-two-metre painting that features the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the Arabic phrase "As-Samad", Arabic for "the eternal". The work was donated to the Australian Catholic University as an interfaith gift.