ABDULLAH HAMMAS (B. 1953), UNTITLED

signed Abdullah Hammas in Arabic and signed and dated Hammas 1978 in English (lower right) 

oil on panel

59 by 47.5 cm. 23 ¼ by 18 ¾ in.

Framed: 78 by 66 cm. 30 ¾ by 26 in.

Executed in 1978.

Abdullah Hammas was born in Abha in 1952, and has lived across Saudi Arabia including in Tabuk, Riyadh and Jeddah. Hammas graduated from the Institute of Art Education in 1973 before formally beginning his artistic career and working for 31 years as an art teacher. Hammas’ affinity for the arts was apparent from a young age, and his belief that all artists are products of their environment is fully observable in the influences his oeuvre bears. From his time living in Abha, Hammas was surrounded by nature, greenery and colourful folk art which is specific to the southern Saudi environment, and which stands in contrast to the arid landscape of Tabuk. He is considered one of the first painters to have challenged the limits of traditional and decorative painting in the Gulf, pioneering an artistic trajectory into abstraction that was imbued with a rooted sense of his homeland, with geometric shapes superseding the depiction of objects with the intention of promoting pure aesthetics. Hammas established his primary painting atelier in Jeddah that sits alongside his secondary studio in Abha. His works are held in public collections across the Middle East, Europe and the UK, including the Royal Palaces of Al Yamama and Assalam. He has also exhibited at the Jeddah Atelier and the Saudi Centre.

Much like Kazimir Malevich, Hammas was interested in theosophy, and the mystical school of thought which promoted the belief that the real world was an illusion and that the tangible ‘real’ world existed ‘behind’; that the reality one should be concerned with lays beyond the physical reality. Unrestrained and spontaneous, with inspiration drawn from his surrounding architecture and the natural environment, Hammas sees his artistic contribution as “a brick in the wall of this great country.”

The organic forms of Hammas’ early abstractions gave way to a rigorous geometricism. Those works executed in Riyadh were sharper in nature, whilst later works produced in the Eastern coastal province of Al Khobar are often brighter in colour with more distinct lines and organic forms at play. Hammas’ fundamental question was whether it was possible for his generation to paint not only the desert and the dunes, but the vital forces of a chilled evening breeze, and not only the architecture of a mosque, but the sound of the azan. This opened his palette to the many forces, rays and oscillations that were yet to be discovered. Here, the subtle yet multi-faceted symbolism contributes to the immense importance of the present work within Hammas’ oeuvre: softly commanding, it is a work of outstanding authority.