A familiar scene unfolds under Jean Nouvel’s Dome of Light at Louvre Abu Dhabi — but with a twist. The courtyard tree is no longer Giuseppe Penone’s bronze sculpture. In its place stands a digitally rendered oak, surrounded by wildflowers.
“The oak is a symbol of wisdom and grows not from soil but from cultural sediment,” says artist Ryan Koopmans. “We chose this tree to represent the museum and what it stands for: centuries of art, migration and memory converging under the rain of light.”
Titled Under The Rain Of Light, the work is part of The Wild Within, a lens-based series by Koopmans, who is Dutch-Canadian, and his wife, Swedish artist Alice Wexell. The series blends photographic imagery of historic and sometimes derelict buildings with meticulous 3D renderings of flora, creating what the artists call “imaginative overgrown realms.”
Iconic UAE Landmarks Transformed
On view at Leila Heller Gallery, Dubai until mid-January, the exhibition features architecture from across the region. Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque becomes a fertile garden of blooms, with foyers and colonnades wrapped in flowers, grasses, and climbing vines. In Qasr Al Watan, digital flora softens marble pillars and gilded geometry, while the upper floors of Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental are transformed into a sanctuary of gold and greenery.
Other works depict Dubai’s Al Maktoum Residence, Sharjah’s Al Bait Al Gharbi, Jeddah’s Al Balad, Lebanon’s abandoned Grand Aley Hotel, and a historic bathhouse in Baku. The pieces reflect on regional architecture while meditating on the evolving relationship between humanity and nature.
“I have long been interested in the relationship between nature and the built environment,” says Koopmans. “In this series, nature is in control — hence the wilding of the interior spaces.”
From Inspiration to Creation
The project began after a visit to Tskaltubo, Georgia, a former Soviet resort abandoned after 1991. Vegetation had overtaken bathhouses and hotels, inspiring the artists to exaggerate overgrowth through creative digital interventions.
“The photographs did not convey the sense that the city was being slowly engulfed by nature,” Koopmans says. “So we created a place that is also no place, suspended between reality and fantasy.”
Each work takes several hundred hours to complete. The process begins with research and on-site photography, followed by months of 3D modeling and rendering in the couple’s Stockholm studio. They produce both still images and short animations, merging real photographs with digitally crafted flora.
Exhibiting the Vision
The 24 works in Dubai are displayed as large-scale archival prints and on LED screens, including a 3m x 2.4m digital canvas rotating a selection of pieces.
“Visually, AI is very close to creating similar results, but it cannot match our compositional balance or creative control,” Koopmans explains. “We also keep part of the work grounded in reality because people respond to that.”
Koopmans notes that the digital screens enhance color and detail to their fullest effect, offering a superior experience for motion-based artwork — an increasingly important consideration for artists, galleries, and collectors alike.