I painted this work for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Founding Day. It is a contemporary visual vision of that day — but it does not tell history in a direct, documentary way. It reshapes it through the language of dream, memory, and symbol. It is not a scene from the past; it is the summoning of the spirit of beginnings that shaped the identity of a nation that endures to this day.
At the heart of the work, Najdi architecture, historical mosques, palm trees, and desert caravans take form — symbols of the place where the first story began. These elements do not rest on the ground; they seem suspended between sky and sand, marking the truth that great civilizations are not built with stone alone but with ideas, values, and people.
The sky moves with blue, violet, and gold in wide swirls that resemble time itself crossing through the centuries. The historical city glows at its center, like a beacon of civilization that links the past to the present. The camels walking in the foreground represent the journey of our ancestors, the journey of patience and struggle that paved the way for the generations that followed.
I rely here on a blend of symbolic realism and surrealism, in which elements of history become a visual space open to interpretation — between Najdi architecture, mosques, minarets, caravans, palms, and sky.
I am here retrieving the memory of the place I belong to, telling the story of a nation through art. I do not present Founding Day as a historical event only, but as a living identity that lives inside us and walks with us into the future. Heritage is not something kept in books; it is a creative energy that can become a universal language understood by all.
