Al Balad Jeddah by Nasha Maryam
Explore Mondoir Studio
Medium: Acrylics and gold leaf on canvas
Dimensions: 40 x 50 cm
Year: 2024
Price: $1900.00 USD
Status: available
Al Balad, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, my homeland , my childhood & my memories 🤍 Capturing the golden part of the city I grew up - Historical Balad, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Now officially recognized by UNESCO under World Heritage list. I remember my father taking our family and friends who came for Umrah & Hajj to visit old Balad, then as we grew up we got a few glittery Ramadan nights in Balad. And now this is one of the most captured pictures of Old Balad. I tried recreating it as Art using acrylic and silver leaf painting on stretched canvas. A timeless beauty that withstood gracefully!
Why collect this work?
By compressing a tall architectural cluster against open sky, this painting treats Al Balad less as a panorama than as a structure assembled through memory.
- Maryam reports growing up in Jeddah and remembering family visits and Ramadan nights in Al Balad. Her account frames the selected, widely photographed view as both shared heritage imagery and personal recollection.
- The building nearly reaches the upper edge, while a narrow road curves away at lower left. Repeated shutters, screens and masonry patterns divide the irregular façade, making accumulated construction the painting’s central subject.
- Acrylic supports crisp separations among windows, palms, stonework and pale sky. The catalogue records gold leaf, while the artist’s description names silver leaf, so the metallic material is documented inconsistently and its reflective effect cannot be judged from the photograph.
- Made in 2024, the work provides a focused case for considering how a familiar heritage image changes when filtered through autobiographical attachment and rebuilt detail by detail in paint.
About the Artist
Nasha Maryam
Nasha Maryam is an artist on Mondoir Studio. Artistic discipline: painting. Based in Sharjah, AE.
Nationality: Indian
My signature art styles are seascapes and desertscape paintings. It is because I find in the desert the moments to pause, slow down and introspect.
