American artist Jim Denevan has unveiled one of his most ambitious land art installations to date in Abu Dhabi, a monumental desert mandala composed of 448 hand-sculpted sand pyramids. The geometric masterpiece, titled “Self Similar,” spans nearly one square kilometer on Fahid Island and is designed to evolve with the shifting desert landscape.
The installation is part of the “Manar Abu Dhabi” public art initiative, which aims to ground light in the city’s natural and urban spaces. At dusk, the artwork is transformed by more than 1,000 solar lanterns that gradually illuminate each pyramid, creating a warm, unifying glow that changes with the light and shadows of the evening.
Denevan, a renowned artist known for his ephemeral earthworks, often creates his pieces with a stick or a rake, relying on intuition and a deep understanding of geometry to make his impossibly precise designs. His work is a meditation on the fleeting nature of life and the intricate patterns of the natural world.
This project is a continuation of Denevan’s history of creating works on an immense scale. He is a Guinness World Record holder for the largest freehand drawing on sand, a design that spanned 4.86 km in diameter in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. He has since created even larger works, including a series of circles etched into the frozen surface of Russia’s Lake Baikal that covered 12.5 square miles.
