Vivienda Hotels

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

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Imani Bilál was commissioned to create an extensive body of original artwork for Vivienda Hotels in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, extending her abstract painting practice into an architectural environment. The project encompassed 46 units across the property, including 22 luxurious villas, 12 guestrooms, and 12 one-bedroom apartments, with paintings created specifically for each space.

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Working in collaboration with Italian architect and interior designer Michele Arcarese and interior designer Michelle Song, Bilál developed more than 200 works, including original paintings and hand-embellished prints. Rather than approaching the commission as a collection of individual artworks, she developed the body of work as an integrated visual language across the property.

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Bilál studied the architecture and interiors in detail, considering floor plans, material samples, color palettes, furnishings, lighting, and the relationships between spaces. Each work was developed in dialogue with its intended environment, allowing the paintings to respond to the architecture while remaining grounded in the language of Bilál’s own practice.

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Her research extended beyond the interiors to Riyadh itself. She considered the city's history, landscape, cultural traditions, people, and contemporary identity, using these observations as points of departure rather than literal subjects. Color, gesture, texture, inscription, and layered mark-making became vehicles through which she explored place, connection, spirit, and human experience.

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The resulting body of work functions as an interconnected visual narrative throughout the property. Abstraction becomes a means of creating continuity between individual spaces while allowing each work to retain its own presence. The project reflects Bilál’s broader interest in how painting can hold memory, atmosphere, and cultural context while existing in conversation with architecture.

 

Vivienda represents one of the most expansive site-responsive commissions within Bilál’s practice, bringing together painting, research, architecture, and interior design on an unprecedented scale. The project demonstrates the capacity of her abstract practice to move beyond the gallery and into fully realized environments, where artwork becomes an integral part of the experience of place.