This painting (acrylics on plaster, original size: 5’ x 3’) is one of a series of wall murals I was commissioned to paint for an Arabic restaurant in London. Drawing on both my own experience of Arabic culture, gained from living many years in living and traveling throughout in the Middle East (as both a child and later as a young adult) and the many wonderful stories, told by Sheherazade in 1001 nights. For this one I took my inspiration from the text of one of the tales entitled: ‘The City Of Many-Columned Iram And Abdullah Son Of Abi Kilabah’(as translated by Sir Richard F. Burton): “IT is related that Abdullah bin Abi Kilabah went forth in quest of a she-camel which had strayed from him, and as he was wandering in the deserts of Al-Yaman and the district of Saba, behold, he came a great city girt by a vast castle around which were palaces and pavilions that rose high into middle air. He made for the place thinking to find there folk of whom he might ask concerning his she-camel. But when he reached it, he found it desolate, without a living soul in it. So (quoth he) I alighted and, hobbling my dromedary, and composing my mind, entered into the city”. In it, I tried to capture the vast emptiness of the silent, desert landscape and the desolation of an empty walled city, complete with palaces and minarets, rising out of the sand dunes.