The Umayyad Legacy, 2024

This piece is a reworking of an earlier, smaller piece called The Path that Leads Everywhere. In this iteration the geometry and proportions have been modified, and the colourways have been revised to elicit vitality rather than tranquillity.

Influenced by the Sufi patterns that adorn the mosques and architecture in the Middle East where I grew up, this piece is a reminder that all empires have their time before their inevitable decline. Largely unknown in The West, the Umayyad Caliphate, and subsequently the Abbasid Caliphate which were established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and centred around Saudi Arabia, were the seventh largest empires in recorded history. They arose after the Roman empire, and were over twice the size of it at its greatest extent. Although these empires are gone, their legacy continues to influence the world through culture and architecture.

As tessellations, these geometric patterns can repeat infinitely. They are commonly argued to be references to, and reminders of the spiritual, as well as physical aspects of existence in Islamic decoration.

Painted entirely using emulsion paints salvaged from post consumer sources, and drawing upon compositional elements including Western and Eastern sacred geometry, this piece is intended to remind us of the cosmological principles that unite us with the universe. What we interpret as rust and decay is simply the impact of time and energy reconfiguring the combinations of atoms that constitute what our senses perceive as physical reality. The repurposed paints used to make this piece references that all matter, including the atoms that make up our own bodies, is eternally recycled into new formats.

Carbon emissions footprint: Approx $-11.20\text{kg CO2e (Carbon negative)}$

10% of sales proceeds are donated to Client Earth or an approved environmental charity of your choice.