The exceptional city of Toronto has gotten a little bit better thanks to the efforts of The L.O.F.T. and local artist Javid (Ja.1n.Us Art). You may have noticed some of his murals around the city, particularly around Christie Pitts and the Bloorcourt Village, where Javid coordinates one of the city’s longest lasting Graffiti Arts programs. The LOFT has been home to a number of solid writers and artists over the last decade, including Sight, Horus, Mediah, Globe and Jafar.

The LOFT is an acronym for Life Opportunities, Food and Technology. Located in the basement of the Christie Ossington Neighbourhood Centre (www.conccommunity.org), the LOFT is a drop-in youth space that provides volunteer and employment opportunities for street-involved youth, newcomer and emerging artists. The LOFT Sound Studio allows young emcees, producers and engineers to collaborate and access mentorship in sound production and recording. LOFT Music represents the collective of these artists working to make intelligent hip hop music reflective of the diveristy in Toronto. The crew has dropped two compilation albums of original music (Produced by Ken and Moose) that was written, recorded, mixed and mastered at the LOFT Sound Studio, featuring some of TDot’s hidden gems like Scandalis (Empire), Obie, Most Hated, Ali the Son of Abdul, theVoyce and Hannah. (www.myspace.com/loftmusik).

Independently, Javid continues to experiment with Arabic calligraphy in latex acrylic canvas paintings, working with the nibbed brush, and mixing aerosol, oil and inks to create works that challenge the the critical boundaries between Islamic art, portraiture and graffiti. His work is fundamentally concerned with the structure of letters, the architecture of numbers, and the juxtaposition of these forms with the face of the icon. To this end, Javid has exhibited works in group shows locally and globally, including shows in Toronto, Vancouver, New York, Bombay and Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Currently, Javid is working on an epic series of work dedicated to the archetypes of numbers – a study of the qualitative characteristics of the numbers 1 through 9. He is also available for portrait commissions, including your name emblazed in Arabic wildstylez.