DUBAI: The 17th edition of Art Dubai will showcase works from more than 120 galleries around the world.
And Saudi artists will be among the participants in the international art fair running from March 1 to 3.
Jeddah-based Hafez Gallery will be showcasing rare black-and-white works on cardboard by Saudi artist Abdulsattar Al-Mussa.
Born in Al-Ahsa in 1955, and educated in the Soviet Union during the 1970s, his works were created in the 1980s and use thickly contoured lines to depict everyday scenes in his native Saudi Arabia.
The gallery’s curatorial director, Alexandra Stock, told Arab News: “People have been asking a lot of questions about Abdulsattar’s work. They’re very intrigued by the technique.
“I think it’s important to show Abdulsattar at Art Dubai because he has had a lot of success abroad, but it’s very nice that he is having another upwind, a push in the region, that he’s being acknowledged back home,” she said.
The fair’s sections cover contemporary, bawwaba, modern, and digital art.
In the contemporary part, a Hafez Gallery booth will be displaying the work of Saudi creative Bashaer Hawsawi, whose visual artwork has been constructed from dried palm leaves formed into patterns and figures.
She told Arab News: “I used to come to Art Dubai just to visit. Being here means a lot to me.”
Her exhibit, “Holy Thirst,” was inspired by her maternal family’s fashioning of palm fronds into everyday domestic tools.
Jeddah’s Athr Gallery will be putting on a solo exhibition of works by Saudi artist Ayman Yossri Daydban, who for decades has worked in a variety of mediums.
Some of the European galleries represented at the fair will also be highlighting artists from the Kingdom.
From Austria, Galerie Krinzinger will be displaying a piece by Maha Malluh, known for creating large installations made from items popular in bygone eras. Her long rectangular panel festooned with cassette tapes is part of her “Food For Thought” series in which she mounts countless objects on walls, many collected from markets in Saudi Arabia.
Madrid-based gallerist Sabrina Amrani has dedicated half of her booth to a selection of photographic, sculptural, and textile works by Saudi artist Manal Al-Dowayan, who will represent the Kingdom at the Venice Biennale in April.
Amrani told Arab News: “The feedback has been amazing. Manal is a very dear artist of Dubai. She had her studio here for many years, contributing to the arts scene greatly here. These works feel at home.”
