The art of geology

Art and science are often seen as two very different disciplines. One studies the natural world through observing, testing and experimenting against theories. The other is an interpretation of what one sees around them to create something. But the two can work together, and when they do, it can create something rather different and unique.

I spend a lot of time meeting artists. Like anyone coming to AlUla, they are fascinated about the landscape and the story of how AlUla came to be. I can give them blog posts, or copies of the Geology of AlUla booklet, but talking in person is so much more valuable. Both for the artist and for me. The artist can ask questions to help them understand. And for me, I can see whether they do understand. It’s quite interesting, there is that moment where I can see when they understand: a split second flash in their eyes, like it has all come together. ?

This sounds strange, but it’s important. Geology is a big subject. I talk about it like a chef talks about making pizza. In my mind, I can see the vastness of time, the continents moving, entire landforms thrust up. These are enormous concepts to wrap your head around. It’s easy to have the wrong visualization in your mind, especially when someone is talking about things on such a huge level. But when it clicks, you can see it. You see the rocks around us entirely differently.

It is this story written in the landscape of AlUla that many artists have taken inspiration from and produced some rather surprising artworks.

I recently visited Desert X AlUla 2024, the Royal Commission for AlUla’s most recent art exhibition which ended on March 23rd. An exhibition in perhaps the most beautiful art gallery in the world: outside set within wind sculpted sandstone formations and beautiful smooth honey-coloured sand. No building in the world could replicate this setting. Standing, looking out of the welcome center, ready to walk around to see the art works, you find yourself looking, lost, almost hypnotized by the beautiful landscape.

For once, I wasn’t here just for the rocks. I had met the artists who were displaying their work, and I was keen to see what they had created. I was very delighted to discover that several of the artists, in fact, a large percentage of the artists, had taken inspiration from geology.?

You could take a golf cart around Desert X 2024, but just like when I’m visiting a new city, I prefer to walk. Walking lets you take in the surroundings. You see more. And you are at your own pace.

So we walked, across the soft sand, and we first came to some large shiny black globules, almost looking like giant amoebas, glinting in the sun. This was Monira Al Oadiri’s piece, W.A.B.A.R. They were not giant bacteria, but something even cooler. Monira had heard about the British explorer, Harry St John Philby, who had travelled across the Empty Quarter and found many ‘pearls’. The pearls were of course not pearls (which are made by oysters. And interestingly, those little solid balls we find so precious are made by the oyster when it feels something inside it’s shell. The oyster covers it in calcium carbonate to stop it irritating it’s fleshy insides). These pearls were in fact made by something out of this world: a meteorite. The meteorite, Known as the Wabar meteorite, it broke into several large pieces, some so large, you could sit on them.? The force and the heat of a meteorite smashing into sand causes something amazing. The sand does slightly cushion the impact, so you won’t see a huge crater like you would expect. But the impact is so powerful, it melts the surrounding sand. Here, Philby found fragment of black melted sand, like a dark glass, in the middle of the desert. Monira took this story, and created some unusual, large black pieces, representing meteorites.

You may be a bit confused to find an enormous horse chestnut tree on its side in the middle of the desert. It’s a long way from home (horse chestnuts can be found across Europe, North America and Canada, but not on the Arabian Peninsula). This is Guiseppe Penone’s piece, The Logic of the Vegetal – Metamorphosis. It’s a huge bronze cast that has been inspired by fossil wood, known as petrification. This is not the work of Medusa, but it is in fact something that happens naturally. Trees buried in sediment are eventually ‘petrified’. They are not watching a horror movie. Rather, the minerals in the water replace the organic matter, creating an exact cast of the tree. This is how fossils are formed. And although there are no fossils of wood in the rocks of AlUla, it has been found in Saudi Arabia: evidence of trees tens of millions of years ago. Some examples of fossilized wood are on display around the huge horse chestnut cast.

I spent a long time with Faisal Samra, walking around his area in Wadi AlFann at 5 in the morning as the sun was slowly rising. We talked about many things, but there was one thing that really fascinated him: how the smallest of cracks in the rock can become enormous valleys. We talked about the wind and rain and how it can slowly, very slowly break down the rock, and how that hairline crack is the starting point for the wind and the rain to attach a rock. We talked with excitement about the vastness of time: not just a few thousand years, but a few million years. Faisal would listen with excitement as I talked about how the landscape formed, how it looked so very in the past. And his work is a little nod to our talks. The Dot, focuses on the grains of sand you see around you and how they were once part of the rock that made up an enormous sandstone plateau. Cracks in the rocks slowly became wider and wider, as the wind and rain slowly broke them down, grain by grain. And you are walking on those grains now, grains that were once part of the rock.

Bosco Sodi created something that used two large outcrops, packed full of holes, as his canvas. When I saw my reflection uses gold painted pebbles that look like they naturally fit into the holes left by tafoni. It may be coincidence, or something quite clever, but placing pebbles into holes that we created by pebbles falling out is quite a simple, but smart idea. Tafoni forms from a larger pebble or concretion in the sandstone falling out. The grains around where it once was are now loose, so the wind will gently loosen them more. As more grains fall out, that little concave gap left by where a pebble once was, gets a little bit bigger. As the hole deepens, the strength of the wind increases: it becomes trapped and acts like a little hurricane, loosening more grains and making the holes bigger. The reflection is not about an individuals reflection, but the reflection of the sun on the rocks. Interestingly, the gold shines differently throughout the day depending on where the sun is, just like the landscape of AlUla looks different at different times of the day.

A hidden valley is dotted with several beautiful, glinting, blue structures. This is Kader Attia’s piece, Whistleblower. The blue structures are blue glass bottles melted together, with the tips angled to capture the sound of the wind that travels through the valleys carved through time. Blue glass in the light orange surroundings looks very striking, and works well in this small valley. And the blue for the bottles? This is a subtle nod to AlUla’s past and how those rocks formed 500 million years ago. During this time, AlUla was not where it lies today, and looked nothing like what we know. It lay on the edge of an enormous continent, and huge rivers and deltas deposited unfathomable amounts of sediments: sediments that would eventually form the rocks you see today.

It was wonderful to see some art work that had geology in the title! Aseel Al Yaqoub’s piece, Weird Life: An Ode to Desert Varnish was weird and wonderful. And what’s more, how many people had heard of desert varnish before? Fantastic! Desert varnish is the colouring of the sandstones because of microscopic clay particles in the air. When wind hits the side of a sandstone outcrop, it can splat these particles onto the rock. Slowly, after thousands of years, it builds up, creating a harder, and darker layer, called desert varnish. The rain can create colouring too. When it rains, the water will run down the side of an outcrop, leaving the clay particles, which creates stripy patterns down the rock. (Think of when you sweat: the sweat runs down the side of your face, and leaves a salt trail.) Desert varnish is Mother Nature’s painter, and Aseel used this to create her own art work.

Whilst some of these art pieces may not look like anything familiar, and some may even leave you wondering what they are, what I found most interesting is just how many of the artists took inspiration from the incredible landscape of AlUla. Art is an individual’s view of something, interpreting it in their own way. And these art works were interesting, and rather unique, takes on geology. They each created something to reflect the vastness of time, ancient worlds that have long since vanished, and even the more recent processes that created the landscape that we see around us.

Art may not be for everyone. But good interpretation, giving clues about the inspiration of the piece helps a lot.

And what about me? Well, I was very pleased to see so many artists remembering our discussions and chats, and using geology as inspiration for their work. And honestly, it was quite a proud moment seeing these strangely wonderful creations, and knowing that the artist got it: they may not be scientists, but they understood the geology. Some may say that’s because of the excellent sessions, walks, and workshops. Whilst that may be true, my English modesty will say that it’s because they were keen to know more about the quite spectacular landscape that makes AlUla so iconic.

Art and science do not have to be two separate disciplines. Together they can be something rather interesting. And there’s something else: the geology story of AlUla has reached new audiences who otherwise may have only just looked at the rocks and wondered.

Wondering is nice and shows that innate curiosity.

Discovering and knowing is even better.