The Walls of Roma Painting Series

From Lens to Canvas

The Walls of Roma began as a photographic exploration, an intimate study of the textured facades of Roma, captured through the lens of Paul Jacob Bashour. Drawn to the quiet strength and layered history etched into these surfaces, Paul Jacob transformed this visual archive into a series of paintings that reinterpret the city’s enduring presence through abstraction.

Each painting in the series extends Paul Jacob’s dialogue with Roma, where stone becomes gesture, patina becomes palette, and timeworn decay is elevated into contemporary expression. These works are not replicas of photographs, but emotional translations where what was once seen is now deeply felt, layered in paint and memory.

Inspired by the walls that line Roma’s streets weathered by centuries, scarred by sun and shadow, Paul Jacob distills their spirit into each canvas. The warmth of fading terracotta, the rhythm of fractured stucco, the subtle traces of human presence all emerge through intentional mark-making and tonal restraint.

With this body of work, The Walls of Roma moves from documentation to interpretation. Paul Jacob invites the viewer not just to observe Roma, but to experience it, its silence, its resilience, its poetry.