Are drawing and painting haraam?

Menachem Wecker writes:

In May, the National Islamic Arts and Culture Foundation hosted the first Islamic Arts Festival in Lansdowne, Va. The artwork ranged from calligraphy to landscapes to less traditional Islamic work, like Asma Ahmed Shikoh’s hijabs mixed with iPods and Islamic super-heroines.

Shikoh is not the only artist producing edgy works with Islamic imagery. A recent Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art show included Hussein Chalayan’s fashion collection “Between,” which features a model wearing only her head scarf. Max Emadi, an Iranian-born artist, recently created a series called Islamic Erotica, with women in burkas assuming American pin-up poses.

Emadi’s Terrorists & Freedom Fighters series depicts President George W. Bush nude in the Oval Office, Osama bin Laden and 9-11 mastermind, Mohammad Atta.

This sort of work raises a number of questions about what Sharia law has to say about representational art, especially nude depictions. Emadi readily admits he is neither a practicing Muslim nor a believer. Though he feels his work contains no nudity, he adds, “Islamic tradition regarding what constitutes pornography and what is appropriate subject matter for art is so rigid that I am sure most imams would consider the work inappropriate.”