Nine canvas tiles mounted on to a 24" x 24 wood panel

Spain was always top of my travel bucket list for a number of reasons. Top of the list was to witness cities like Granada for Alhambra. A fortress from the time of Moors in Spain; I had hoped that it would be a mirror reflection of the hybrid religious architecture I witnessed in Istanbul. Except in this case, it would be Mosques that have been converted to Churches.

While Alhambra was extraordinary, and Granada provided the most beautiful sunset I’ve yet to witness, it was Cordoba that gave me what I was hoping for.

Cordoba was the capital of Spain during Islamic rule, and the Mosque built there was a triumph that would still be one of the most beautiful in the world today had it remained unchanged. Instead, large portions of the mosque were converted to a Cathedral after the Spanish Inquisition. Unlike Hajj Sofia in Istanbul, the Gothic style Catholic Cathedral did not naturally compliment the Syrian style architecture of the Cordoba Mosque, the way the Eastern Orthodox domes lent themselves to becoming a Mosque.

Where the two styles did compliment one another were the windows. Seeing the light from the stained glass windows kiss the pillars gave me what I hoped for, moments where two different styles from two different religions amplified one another.

This is why I chose to make this piece a combination of the preserved Mosque windows, and a pattern from one of the Cathedral’s stained glass windows.

The 8 pointed star contains the pattern from one of the Mosque’s exterior mashrabiya wall windows, with the surrounding space and cross in the middle containing the church window pattern. I utilized phosphorus paint in order to give the effect of moonlight shining through at night.

Eventually, and with the help of a lot of painters tape, inspiration became realization. 

Cordoba