Hamad Alsheail | Diwan Alshams

Creative Portfolio ديوان الشمس

A lone figure in a thobe walking a dry riverbed beneath red sandstone cliffs

Two people at dusk beside a stone pillar carved with kanji, one holding a paper umbrella

A deer grazing on a green ridge above a hazy blue mountain range

About Me

Hamad Alsheail standing among desert rock formations at sunset, camera in hand

I'm Hamad Alsheail, an artist based in Riyadh, working between words and photos.

Photography taught me to notice common things from different angles: a shepherd crossing a canyon at midday, a stranger walking through an empty tunnel or just observing the structure of a mountain.

Writing taught me to sit with what I observed a little longer — to process it and draw my personal reflection upon it. Chasing moments between landscaping adventures, to portraying life in the streets.

These days, that curiosity lives in Diwan Alshams ديوان الشمس — my space for practicing and experimenting across different art forms and medias.

A figure sitting on a guardrail on a wet mountain road as fog swallows the forest behind

Showcase

Wa'atha' 1447 H | وعثاء ١٤٤٧ هـ

A printed grid collage of daily self-portraits in black and white, interrupted by a column of colour landscape frames

Representation of the cumulative hardship of adventuring in nature. Escaping the urban fast-paced life to disconnect in the slow-paced nature.

A printed collage capturing daily portraits from left to right, showing the physical toll of the journey undertaken day after day in search of mental clarity — even if there is a physical tax — and highlighting the major stops along the trip in Saudi Arabia.

Wilderness

Open land, far from anything built.
What was here before us, and will remain after.

Desert rock spires silhouetted against a sky streaked orange and violet at sunset

An empty beach curving toward a wooded headland in early morning light

Pink cirrus clouds over a wide sandstone plateau and valley floor

Snow-covered ridgelines under heavy grey cloud, seen from a summit

Animals

Existence, without the need to explain itself.
They live outside our idea of meaning.

A shoebill standing on a reed platform in dense tropical greenery

A meerkat perched on a rock between barrel cacti against a rust-red wall

A white gull in flight over a snowbound rock face in flat winter fog

Streets

Every corner holds a hundred unfinished stories.
Motion is the only constant worth capturing.

A lit shopfront window at night on a quiet street, figures visible inside

A crowded neon-lit entertainment district at night beneath a red illuminated archway

A green-tinted underground station landing with a spiral staircase and emergency exit sign

A receding row of painted paper lanterns strung along a shopping arcade

Humans

We move through places, and places move through us.
A trace is all anyone leaves behind.

A single figure walking a covered sidewalk framed by scaffolding poles receding into the distance

A busy shopping crossing beneath large fashion billboards, a man standing still in the flow

A person in a yellow shirt sitting alone on concrete breakwater blocks beside a calm sea

A traveller with a backpack walking away down a long tiled subway corridor

Contact

Email Address: Hamad.alsheail@gmail.com
Social Media: Instagram: @DiwanAlshams; Kitabh: @DiwanAlshams