wadi series
Wadi i, 2022, 70×100cm, acrylic on raw linen
The works in Wadi explore the meeting of fluidity and permanence, drawing on the sensation of water moving across, around, and through rock. The title comes from the Arabic word wadi, referring to a valley or riverbed shaped by the passage of water. It may be flowing or dry, yet it always carries the memory of water’s presence. Rather than depicting specific landscapes, the series translates these elemental encounters into organic abstract forms that appear to shift between geological formations and imagined terrains.
Layers of translucent colour, dense masses, softened edges, and cascading marks evoke the gradual processes through which water alters stone. Forms seem to pool, erode, merge, and reconstitute themselves, creating a tension between weight and movement, resistance and surrender. Moments of vivid colour interrupt darker, mineral tones like light striking water or vegetation appearing within a rocky landscape.
Throughout Wadi, erosion is understood not as disappearance, but as a form of transformation. What appears solid is continually reshaped by what appears yielding, while stone determines the direction and rhythm of water. This reciprocal relationship becomes a way of considering connection with the natural world, not through observation alone, but through an awareness of touch, duration, and change. Existing between landscape and inner state, the works evoke nature as a living presence whose forms are never fixed, but continually becoming.
* All works from the Wadi series have been acquired and are now held in private collections.