A Retrospective of Mona Al Khaja @ Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai - "Caravan of Colors Through Time" Exhibition

Caravan of Colors Through Time: A Retrospective of Mona Al Khaja 

Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai

September 19 – November 5, 2025

Aisha Alabbar Gallery presents Caravan of Colors Through Time, a landmark retrospective celebrating over four decades of work by Mona Al Khaja (b. Sharjah, 1958), a pioneering figure of Emirati modern art.

Mona Al Khaja belongs to the first generation of Emirati artists whose creative pursuits began at a time when the UAE’s cultural identity was still in its earliest stages. Her work stands as a vital record of the region’s artistic development, bridging the foundational years of formal art education in the Gulf with the emergence of a distinct and independent visual language.

A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cairo, Mona Al Khaja immersed herself in the vibrant artistic scene of Egypt during the 1970s and 1980s. Under the mentorship of pioneering artists such as Dr. Najat Makki and Abdulrahim Salim, she explored the expressive possibilities of abstraction, symbolism, and the evocative power of color. These early influences would become the foundation for a practice that has remained deeply committed to painting as a means of articulating both personal memory and collective history.

The exhibition presents paintings from every stage of Mona Al Khaja’s career: early works created during her student years in Cairo, pieces produced upon her return to the Emirates, and recent compositions in which landscapes dissolve into contemplative visions. The desert’s vast horizons, the intricate patterns of architecture, and the ephemeral shimmer of light are transformed into quiet meditations on time, place, and belonging.

Through her steadfast dedication to her craft, Mona Al Khaja has shaped a distinctly Emirati voice within the broader narrative of Arab modernism. As one of the first Emirati women to pursue a professional career in the visual arts, she has paved the way for generations to follow her work revealing how the visual language of abstraction can convey what spoken

language often cannot.

Reflecting on her lifelong practice, Mona Al Khaja writes:

“The brush and colors speak when the tongue is silent.”

Shilan Samaei, Gallery Director at Aisha Alabbar Gallery, reflects: “Visiting Mona in her studio was an unforgettable experience. Leafing through old photographs, images of her as a young painter beside pioneers like Dr. Najat Makki and Abdulrahim Salim was like stepping into a pivotal moment in the UAE’s cultural history. It was a time when an entire generation was not only creating art but also laying the very foundations of the nation’s artistic identity. This exhibition stands as both a tribute to that unwavering dedication and a testament to the enduring influence of Mona’s work

Caravan of Colors Through Time offers both a celebration of Mona Al Khaja’s remarkable artistic legacy and an invitation to consider how art like memory can become a vessel through which we understand ourselves and the places we call home."

Artist Mona Al Khaja

Mona Al Khaja (b. Sharjah, 1958) is an Emirati painter. Having graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts of Cairo of Helwan University, in 1981, Mona Al Khaja studied under influential artists and educators from the Arab World including Hamed Nada, Mohammed Riyadh, and Ahmed Nawar. She is considered among the founding artists of the contemporary art scene in the UAE.

As one of the first generation of UAE artists, Mona Al Khaja’s approach to painting is the result of formal study in the history of art, training in Egypt alongside artists such as Dr. Najat Makki and Abdulrahim Salim, as well as mastering techniques unique to Islamic culture. These sources provide her with abundant inspiration that she translates to the Emirati present, often blending symbolism and impressionist abstraction into her signature style. Mona Al Khaja uses figuration and abstraction, deliberately layering and blending colours and strokes to capture simplicity so elaborately. The artist mirrors her experience observing and recollecting acts of life at home and abroad.

She has had several solo exhibitions in the UAE, including a solo presentation at Abu Dhabi Art, Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi (2021); Observe + Absorb, Majlis Gallery, Dubai (2019); Harmony: Aesthetics of Ornamentation in Emirati Heritage, Sharjah Heritage Museum, Sharjah (2019); and Chromatic Horizons, Sharjah University, Sharjah (2015).

Mona Al Khaja is a member of the Emirates Fine Arts Society and has continuously participated in its Annual Exhibition since its founding in 1980, in addition to participating in its international exhibitions in Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Singapore, Iran, India and Morocco.

She participated in numerous exhibitions in the UAE, including 7 + 7, Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation, Dubai (2020); Artists and the Cultural Foundation: The Early Years, Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi (2018); The Perpetual Kingdom: Contemporary Arabic Calligraphy, Gallery Ward, Dubai (2016); Sikka Art Fair, Dubai (2015); Her Colourful Papers, Sharjah Calligraphy Museum, Sharjah (2010); and Sharjah Biennial (2001 and 1999). Internationally, Mona Al Khaja participated in notable exhibitions, including Kunooz Fine Art Exhibition and Auction, Bvlgari Hotel Knightsbridge & Christie’s, London, UK (2015); Jewels from the Emirates, Delta City Mall, Podgorica, Montenegro (2011); The Reflective Mirror, United Nations Headquarters, New York, NY, USA (2010); The International Exhibition of the Renaissance and Great Masterpieces of World Art, Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (2009); Cairo Biennial (2004); Kuwait Biennial (2002); and Oman Art Biennial (1990).

Mona Al Khaja has received multiple awards, including the Al Owais Award, Dubai (2019 and 2004); and L’Officiel Arab Women Award, Dubai (2010). She also participated in the Fujairah International Arts Festival Residency in 2018.

The artist sold her first two paintings at age 14 to a prominent art patron in the UAE. Today, her works are in important collections in the UAE including, Barjeel Art Foundation, American University of Sharjah in Sharjah; Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cultural Foundation, Mubadala Investment Company and Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage in Abu Dhabi; Dubai Collection, Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Cultural Foundation and Commercial Bank of Dubai in Dubai; and internationally in The Museum of Modern Art in Kuwait and The Jordan Museum in Amman, Jordan. Her works are also in private collections in the UAE and abroad.

AISHA ALABBAR GALLERY

Warehouse C-19, Alserkal Avenue 17th Street, 

Al Quoz Industrial Area 1 - Dubai, UAE

www.aishaalabbar.art

Nujoom Alghanem @ Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai - Unframed - Words by Myrna Ayad + Biography

Nujoom Alghanem: Unframed

Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai

22 February – 28 April 2023

NUJOOM ALGHANEM 

Between Two Shores, 2022 

Acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 145.5 cm x 240 cm 

Courtesy of the artist and Aisha Alabbar Gallery

Aisha Alabbar Gallery presents Unframed, a solo exhibition by NUJOOM ALGHANEM (b. 1962, Dubai). Bringing together for the first time historical and new paintings as well as a new series of photographic film stills, the exhibition identifies key moments from Nujoom Alghanem ’s two-decade-plus career as an artist, poet, and filmmaker, looking beyond the metaphoric film reel and focusing one frame at a time.

There is something sinister about Between Two Shores, Nujoom Alghanem’s large acrylic and charcoal painting. Is it the ghostly eight white figures that hover over the orange water? Is it the cityscape – undeniably Deira – rendered in flaming red? Or is it Alghanem’s compositional intention to convey the impossibility of the figures reaching shore? It could be all these possibilities, and it is a lot more. All Alghanem’s creative productions are in fact visual essays, and Between Two Shores is one such example; one that first manifested as something that pierced her heart, then struck her hand that felt compelled to write poetry and then became a graphic manifestation as a painting. Across all that Alghanem creates – paintings, poems, and films – a core aspect shared by the three art forms is the sense of healing that they lend their maker.

One of the show’s crown jewels is the collection of paintings from the mid 1990s. Distinct in their small size, earthy colour scheme and compositional intrigue – abstract and figurative all at once – many of these oil paintings were made during Alghanem’s time in the USA, from where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Video Production from Ohio University in 1996. During her undergraduate years, she took a variety of electives and developed deep fascinations with history, African masks, mysticism, mythology and “the anthropological aspect of things”. It reflected in her work. She experimented with materials, such as burlap, to give her paintings texture and in her oil paintings, the “undefined creatures, both human and non-human but not animals” told of other worlds. “These kinds of obsessions don’t go,” says Alghanem. “They come back.” They did, in paintings from the early 2000s, also on show in Unframed.

For the first time, Alghanem presents photographs – stills from her films – with select handwritten verses of her own poetry. There’s the legendary conceptual Emirati artist Hassan Sharif from Sharp Tools (2017), the 90-year-old female healer from Sharjah in Hamama (2010), Fatima, the female camel breeder in Nearby Sky (2014) and of course Falak from Passage (2019), who tells us never to settle for what we know, and a host of other admirable subjects. In marrying the written word with a still from the moving image, Alghanem posits: do we read the text and understand the image, or do we see the image and understand the text? Does it even matter? Isn’t film poetry? Isn’t poetry words? And don’t words ultimately make a visual essay? The answers are in one’s secrets. 

- Words by Myrna Ayad

Myrna Ayad is recognised as one of the Arab world’s leading cultural commentators. She established her namesake consultancy in 2018, focusing on art advisory, cultural strategy and publishing. She was the Director of the region’s foremost international art fair, Art Dubai, from 2016-2018. Additionally, she was the editor of Canvas, the premier magazine for visual arts from the MENA region, from 2007 – 2015. Myrna Ayad is the author of Assouline’s Sheikh Zayed: An Eternal Legacy (2021), a seminal book on the late ruler of the Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan; as well as Dubai Wonder (2021), part of the House’s iconic travel series. She is also the author of The National’s monthly series, Remembering the Artist, an intimate portrayal of the lives of pioneering modernists from the region based on exclusive interviews with their relatives, friends or students. Myrna wrote about art from the region for titles including The New York Times, CNN Online, The Art Newspaper, Artforum, Artsy, Artnet, Wallpaper* and The National, among others, as well as for artist monographs and exhibition catalogues. Over the years, she has served as a panellist and moderator and sits on the committees of cultural organisations in the region. Based in the UAE for four decades, Myrna Ayad graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration in 2001 from the American University in Dubai. 

NUJOOM ALGHANEM - SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Nujoom Alghanem (b. 1962, Dubai) is a pioneering Emirati artist, poet, and multi-award-winning film director. Her multifaceted career which spans four decades, explores forms of storytelling. A core aspect shared by the three art forms is a sense of healing that they lend to their maker.

Nujoom Alghanem is a longstanding member of the UAE’s creative scene from its very beginnings. During the 1980s, she cofounded Aqwas Collective with the late legendary artist Hassan Sharif, Youssef Khalil and Khalid Albudoor in an attempt to look beyond traditional art by experimenting with free-verse poetry composition, constructionism, and post-modernism – inviting a certain amount of criticism. The group orchestrated pop up exhibitions in public spaces, like Central Market of Sharjah (1985) in addition to producing Silsilat Al Ramad (Chain of Ashes), a non-conventional poetry, art, and short stories publication.

In 2019, Nujoom Alghanem made history becoming the first woman to stage a solo exhibition at the UAE’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale, showing Passage, a site-specific film installation. The installation was recreated in 2021 for a solo presentation at Abu Dhabi Art and again in 2022 as part of Portrait of Nation II: Beyond Narratives. Other solo exhibitions include An Imaginary Portrait of Palestine, Tashkeel – Al Fahidi, Dubai, UAE (2022) and Malamih – Faces, Phantoms, and Expressions, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE (2021).

Nujoom Alghanem recently presented That Sea, an immersive video installation at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, ADNEC, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2023). Additionally, she participated in Khaleej Modern: Pioneers and Collectives in the Arabian Peninsula, NYUAD Art Gallery, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2022); Union of Cultures, Sultan Bin Ali Al Owais Foundation, Dubai, UAE (2022); Portrait of a Nation II: Beyond Narratives, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2022); Ramadan Arcade, Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2021); Tashweesh: Noise of Materials, Maraya Art Centre, Sharjah, UAE (2018); Untold Stories Retold, Warehouse421, Abu Dhabi, UAE (2018); The Room of Mysteries, 21st Sharjah Islamic Art Festival, Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE (2018); Mind the Gap, Tashkeel, Dubai, UAE (2017); Rock, Paper Scissors: Positions in Play, UAE National Pavilion, Venice Biennale, Italy (2017); MinD/Body, DUCTAC, Dubai, UAE (2013); and 4th Emirates Fine Arts Society Annual Exhibition, Expo Center, Sharjah, UAE (1985).

Nujoom Alghanem has published eight poetry collections and produced around twenty films including short fiction, documentaries, and art films, earning regional and international awards and Aisha Alabbar Gallery recognition. Nujoom Alghanem has a BA in Video Production from Ohio University in 1996 and an MA in Media Production from Griffith University in Australia in 1999.

AISHA  ALABBAR GALLERY

S1 Mag Warehouse 101, Al Quoz 2, Dubai

www.aishaalabbar.art

Mohamed Al Mazrouei @ Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai - NO

Mohamed Al Mazrouei | NO

Aisha Alabbar Gallery, Dubai

2 March – 29 May 2022

Aisha Alabbar Gallery presents NO, a solo exhibition by prominent Emirati artist and poet MOHAMED AL MAZROUEI. Comprised new and existing works that date back to the 1980s, NO becomes a gesture to follow a thread in his practice and shows his interest in language’s dynamism.

The concept behind Mohamed Al Mazrouei’s first exhibition at Aisha Alabbar gallery comes from a textile remnant found along the street in Cairo. The artist noticed how this fragment with the English word “NO” reflected his current intention and orientation, feeling alienated, not geographically, but as a personal feeling of estrangement or expression of nostalgia.

Having spent the first part of his life in Egypt before moving to the UAE nearly four decades ago, Al Mazrouei’s work is perhaps best described as autobiographical. The works in the exhibition play on memory by taking moments from childhood and indirectly to speak to how our understanding of language is shaped during this time. When concepts are cemented, the image fades. Influenced by the exploration of identity and inspired by African masks, his work draws on sources from around the world. One cannot look at his female figures without recalling the portraits created by Schiele or Basquiat, nor Mahmoud Said’s seductive canvases, which feature exaggerated colours and forms, ‘adopted’ by the Egyptian surrealist movement in the early 1940s.

Known for bold expressions, especially in his paintings of figures, portraits and visual experiments, Mohamed Al Mazrouei uses colour independently, free from restrictions or rules. He is often labelled a ‘neo-expressionist’, although his practice cannot be classified into a one-dimensional category. Strong lines and dark eyes delineate his figures. The faces and bodies are intentionally distorted to emphasise desire, petulance, and rage, at times in a provocative and horrifying manner. In Untitled 64 (1998), Al Mazrouei applies vibrant colours juxtaposed with black lines on a colour block background. He balances primitive instincts with mastered awareness to create his unique visual language. Or in Untitled 4 (2013) and Untitled 10 (2012), the faces lack distinct features, and are suggestive of the fading memory of his youth.

Portraiture also comprises a large part of his practice. Whether in paintings or in works on paper, he continually reinterprets a subject using the technique of mixed abstraction figuration. Although created 13 years apart, Untitled 120 (2007) and Untitled 123 (1994) show variations in the use of eccentric gestures and facial expressions, through which Mohamed Al Mazrouei conveys urgency by relentlessly interrogating the body and suggests self-reflection in blending corporeality and sensuality that poses existential questions.

Mohamed Al Mazrouei’s “NO” finds recurrence essential: elements are determinedly repeated within the same piece, a subject is repeated in several pieces, or a theme is repeated through psychological manifestation. The artist develops a unique visual language through repetition, where elements are experienced as pure forms, balanced between primitive instincts and learned awareness.

MOHAMED AL MAZROUEI (Tanta, 1962) is an Emirati artist, poet, and writer. He studied ancient languages at the Faculty of Languages and Translation at Al Azhar University in Cairo. He moved to Abu Dhabi in the early Eighty’s to eventually become instrumental to the Cultural Foundation and establish himself as a prominent artist, writer, photographer as well as manager of the Emirates Writer’s Union. He has written and published nine books of short stories and poems. His art practice – mainly painting in a signature Neo-Expressionist style – allows viewers to enter the world of his vast imagination. His artworks are rich with figurative iconography and include many humanoid forms. Mohamed Al Mazrouei’s paintings depict a feeling of fervour and urgency that invites the viewer to follow every brushstroke. The human face and figure are often his preferred subjects to paint. However, with a rich, non-linear training, Mazrouei’s approach to the abstract incorporates black and white in absolute purity. Like letters or musical notes, lines and colours fuse to create a composition that strives for a sense of equilibrium. His delineation of a particular object challenges traditional shapes, begging the eye to decipher elements of his compositions. In the past four decades spanning his career, Mohamed Al Mazrouei held several solo exhibitions in the UAE and abroad, including Raw Cooked (2017), AB43 Contemporary, Zurich, Switzerland; Prototype (2016), Mojo Gallery, Dubai, UAE; Maidens of Fair (2012), Abu Dhabi Theatre, Abu Dhabi, UAE; and The Smell (1990), Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Additionally, he participated in several important exhibitions, including Portrait of a Nation I and II (2022 and 2017), Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Artists and the Cultural Foundation: The Early Years (2018), Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, UAE; (Alibadah): Hashel Al Lakmi and Mohamed Al Mazrouei (2018), NYUAD Art Gallery – Project Space, Abu Dhabi, UAE; Noah’s Ark: the 34th Emirates Fine Art Society’s Annual Exhibition(2016), Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah, UAE; There Are Too Many Walls but Not Enough Bridges (2015), Kunstzeughaus, Rapperswil/Zurich, Switzerland; Sky Over the East (2014), Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi, UAE; 3 rd Emirati Expressions: Realised (2013), Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, UAE; MinD/Body: Body Art and Performance in the Gulf (2013), Ductac’s Gallery of Light, Dubai, UAE; the 3rd Al Kharafi Biennial (2010), Kuwait City, Kuwait; and the 1st Sharjah Biennial (1993), Sharjah, UAE. Mohamed is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the Jury Prize (2012) at the 30th Emirates Fine Arts Society Exhibition, Sharjah, UAE and the 1st Award in Photography from Cultural Foundation, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Furthermore, his works can be found in prominent public and private collections in the UAE, such as ADMAF, Cultural Foundation, and UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Abu Dhabi; Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah; and the Qatari Ministry of Culture in Doha; in addition to several private collections around the world.

AISHA ALABBAR GALLERY

S1 Mag Warehouse 101, Al Quoz 2, Dubai

www.aishaalabbar.art

_______________