Transient spaces, hotel lobbies & airports



By the end of 1981, Samer signed with the Jeddah-based Rochan Gallery, and was commissioned to create murals for the newly established King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh which was set to open in 1983.

In transient spaces, I made sketches, these sketches grew into sculptures, these sculptures were placed in transient spaces.
– Samer Tabbaa
Inspired by the ‘postcards’ he pencils in during his liminal time in waiting rooms and hotel lobbies, Samer designed a bronze mural for the King Khalid International Airport. The mural, comprising 9 squares, echoes the veins of airport hallways and terminals taking travellers to different destinations.

Samer experimented with printmaking using a chisel, hammer and rough sandpaper. He maneuvered his way onto a zinc sheet the only way a sculptor knows how, by carving into its depths and manipulating its surface. On it, Samer chiseled impressions of masses, akin to mountain peaks in a desert aerial view, floating on delicate lines flowing like the shifting sands of dunes.


