Amman — For more than forty years, Jordanian visual artist Mohammad Al-Turki has practiced art as a continuous search for place, color, light, and memory.
اضافة اعلان
Throughout this long journey, he has not treated the painting as a copy of reality, but as a space in which he re-reads what the eye sees, transforming everyday details into a visual composition that carries the particular character and spirit of a place.
Old Amman stands at the forefront of the subjects that have taken root in his work, with all it holds of stone, markets, alleyways, facades, doors, windows, and human features.
Al-Turki told Al Ghad that his relationship with art began early, and that color was his first gateway into the world of painting, before this relationship developed over the years into a way of looking at life and place.
He affirmed that Amman, for him, is not merely a city whose landmarks he paints, but a complete memory. He finds in Downtown, Rainbow Street (Shari' al-Funoon), and its old neighborhoods details capable of giving him ever-renewed ideas. He added that a place carries people's memory, and that details which seem ordinary in daily life can become highly valuable once they change or disappear, which is why he tries to preserve them through painting.
He does not transfer a place literally, but reshapes it according to his feeling and vision, so that its features remain clear, but undergo an artistic treatment that gives it new life.
His practice is built on an interplay between realism and impressionism: he preserves the identity and basic features of the scene, while at the same time giving color and light room to express themselves.
In his works depicting Old Amman, a stone facade turns into a compositional mass, an arch becomes a linear rhythm, a window becomes a point of light, while the alleyways become visual pathways guiding the eye through the painting.
Color occupies a central place in his work, especially in his pieces done in oil and acrylic paints. For him, color is not a decorative element, but a means of building the work and defining depth, mass, and space.
It gives stone its gradations, reveals light, deepens shadows, and creates relationships between elements, making the painting both cohesive and open at the same time.
As for light, he sees it as a variable element that continually reshapes a place. The same stone facade can look different between morning and evening, and shadow is capable of giving a building depth and movement.
Al-Turki draws many of his ideas from these transformations, trying to capture a fleeting visual moment and turn it into a lasting impression within the painting.
His work is not limited to architecture, as nature, women, horses, and human scenes also appear in his pieces. Each subject has its own language: horses give him movement and rhythm, nature gives him breadth of color and light, while women give the composition a human and symbolic dimension.
The roots of his artistic formation go back to Iraq, where he studied art and earned a diploma in fine arts, studying at the Institute of Fine Arts, before continuing his career in the visual arts.
He also worked for several years as a lecturer and teacher of visual arts, so that his artistic practice intertwined with teaching and passing on experience.
Over more than four decades, Al-Turki has taken part in numerous local and regional exhibitions and art forums. He is a founding member of the Balqa Association for Fine Arts, a member of the Jordanian Artists Association, and a member of the International Center for Fine Arts, Iraq branch.
He believes that long years spent in art do not mean reaching the end of the road, but rather open new questions for the artist. Every painting, for him, is a different experience, and every return to a place can reveal details that were not visible before. This is why Old Amman has remained a renewing source for him, despite the city's changes and shifting features.
In closing, Al-Turki affirmed that the painting remains, for him, an open space for exploration, and that no matter how much experience an artist gains, there always remains much more to discover. He said: "After more than forty years in visual art, I still return to color, place, and light as if seeing them for the first time.
A painting doesn't end when it's finished; it begins when a viewer stands before it and finds in it something of their own memory and feeling. I still believe that place will remain an inexhaustible source for the artist, and that Amman, with all the history, architecture, and life it holds, is always able to give me a new idea and a new painting."
Resource: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Ahmad Al-Shawabkeh
