Sculpture and Story: The Silence of Wood in the Hands of Ayed Al-Shahrani
In a corner of the Riyadh Art Gallery, a wooden sculpture stood silent... but it was anything but ordinary. It wasn't just a piece of art being displayed. It was a story being whispered.
The sculpture depicts an elderly man sitting on the ground, his hands extended toward the sky, but with no clear features. Just delicately carved lines, suggesting brokenness, surrender, and a longing for something unspeakable.
Work name: “A Prayer from the Trunk of Oblivion”
It was carved by Saudi artist Ayed bin Taleh Al-Shahrani from an ancient piece of sidr wood, which he extracted himself from a mountain village in the south of the Kingdom.
Al-Shahrani says about this sculpture:
“I found the piece of wood in an abandoned farm. It was cracked, pulsating with time. I sat with it for hours… I felt that it wasn’t dead, but waiting for someone to hear it.”
He began carving without a prior design, letting the tool flow with the roughness of the wood.
He didn't try to impose a form on the material, but rather made it tell its own story: a hand trembling with longing, a back burdened with absence, and a face without features... because everyone who sees it sees themselves in it.
Wood was not just a material… it was a witness to a time, and Ayed was not carving a shape… he was extracting a soul.
In Sculpture Masterpieces, we believe that sculpture is not just made... but extracted from the silence of matter.
With every work like “A Prayer from the Trunk of Oblivion,” we realize that true art is that which is not said… but rather felt.