Sound & Silence : Artwork 4

Two hands playing an oud whose body merges without interruption into bare winter tree branches spreading upward — birds perched in the canopy, a crescent moon held within the tangle of limbs. There is no clear boundary where the instrument ends and the tree begins: the wood of one has become the wood of the other. The crescent moon and the winter silhouette place this piece at a specific hour — late, still, played alone under an open sky. In oral and folk music traditions across cultures, the oud played outdoors at night carries the same essential meaning: music as the most honest human response to existing in the world. The oud is considered the "King of Instruments" in the Middle East. Revered as the "instrument of the philosophers", it is deeply tied to cultural identity, spiritual resonance, and historical storytelling across the Arab world, North Africa, and the broader Mediterranean. The composition has a wide horizontal spread rising to a vertical canopy, suited to a bedroom feature wall or a living room where the night register is precisely right.