MOHAMMAD OBAID X DALI HOUSE

In this piece, the artist pays tribute to the King Abdullah Mosque, an architectural gem that so distinctively crowns Amman’s modern skyline. Its turquoise mosaic dome and elegant minarets emerging from the horizon, side by side with the bell tower of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, bring a sense of eternity, devotion and religious coexistence to the vibrant metropolis.

Nested for two millennia in the valley which is now the humming heart of the city center, the Roman theater’s majestic structure appears here as the centerpiece of Ancient Philadelphia, and a testimony of Amman’s past grandeur among the ten cities of the old Decapolis.

Umm Qais is the eternal frontier, on the edge of Empires and Nations. In this piece, the artist aimed at showcasing the archeological richness of the Ancient Gedara, once a thriving city where multiple civilizations found a home and successively built majestic architectural structures which still stand today.

« The desert met the empty sky always the same distance ahead of us. Time and space were one. Round us was a silence in which only the winds played, and a cleanness which was infinitely remote from the world of men. » - Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands (1959). By interlacing endless layers of dunes and stone, the artist aimed at representing, in this piece, the sense of infinity created by the immense plains of the Wadi Rum desert, stretching as far as the eye can see.

« No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad » - Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands (1959). In this piece, the artist pays tribute to the Wadi Rum Bedouins, who guide us in the the vastness of the desert, where our minds wander but are never lost.

In this piece, the Temple of Hercules appears in the backdrop of Amman’s distinctive skyline. The artist aims at capturing this timeless moment when, from atop the Jabal Al-Qalaa (the Mount of the Citadel), one can hear the calls to prayer from all over the city rising and echoing in unison.

This piece represents the Arch of Hadrian, the triple-arched gateway erected in 129-130 AD in the Ancient city of Gerasa (Jerash). The artist aimed at conveying a feeling of humility in front of this imposing silhouette which, for two millenia, has been the first glimpse of Jerash for the traveler arriving from Amman – or Philadelphia in the Roman Era.

While Petra is the rose red city engraved in the rock, Amman is the white and beige metropolis always bustling with life. In this piece, the artist wanted to recreate the atypical beauty of Jordan’s capital, whose infinite skyline of monochromatic buildings stretches to the horizon.

« A rose-red city half as old as time. » - John William Burgon, 1845. In this piece, the artist tried to capture the sense of eternity felt by the traveler when discovering, after a long walk in the arid landscape of the Wadi Araba, the majestic carved silhouette of the Monastery (Al Deir) appearing from the rock and blending into the mountain.

Playing on the interlaced perspectives of the colonnaded street and the majestic silhouette of the Nymphaeum, the artist pays tribute to the richness of Jerash’s archeological heritage and its role as a pillar of the Ancient Decapolis, the ten cities on the Eastern limit of the Roman Empire.