Top Art Events of the Month March 2023

Discover Dubai’s most desirable exhibition openings and cultural happenings.

Concrete, Alserkal Avenue
Dappled Light, Rana Begum

Until 22 March

Multidisciplinary space Concrete presents a rare solo presentation of London-based Bangladeshi visual artist, Rana Begum. Begum’s work explores the interaction of light, colour and form in dialogue with the architectural space. Works span installation, video installation and works on canvas.

Lawrie Shabibi, Alserkal Avenue
Timo Nasseri, All Borrow Their Light

Until 28 April

Berlin-based artist Timo Nasseri presents a comprehensive glimpse into his practice that spans paintings and sculptures. After travelling to Iran with his father Nasseri started to explore the relationship of geometry and Islamic architecture as such Nasseri’s art often embodies concepts of mathematical and geometric thought models.

Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery, Umm Suqeim 2
Summer Wheat, Golden Thread

Until 29 April

American painter, Summer Wheat, places her figures into a parallel universe where every person, regardless of social status, occupies a shared, equal space, in which both labor and leisure are paths to healing humanity. Through a bold palette and energetic compositions Wheat subverts conventional hierarchical structures and stereotypes to create more expansive depictions of daily life throughout history.

Leila Heller, Alserkal Avenue
Ran Hwang, All That Cascades

Until 30 April

Korean artist Ran Hwang draws from her heritage and lived experience in the United States. Hwang adheres buttons, beads, crystals, pins, and threads to plexiglass and wooden panels in an engagement with the Zen Buddhist ideology of repetition. Buddhism is integral to Hwang’s creative process and labor-intensive execution. Hwang creates paper buttons by hand, hammering each one approximately twenty-five times until it is secure. Her process requires the utmost concentration and discipline, recalling the meditative state practiced by Zen masters.

Carbon 12, Alserkal Avenue
Amba Sayal-Bennett, Architectures of Excess

Until 1 May

Amba Sayal-Bennett is a British-Indian artist working across drawing, projection, and sculptural installation. Her practice explores how methods of abstraction are exclusionary and generate borders between the present, the absent, and the othered.

Sayal-Bennett is interested in failed utopic architectural projects in postcolonial India and the problematic role of European Modernism in the expression of ideologies. Architectures of Excess sees Sayal-Bennett present a new body of sculptural work that explores questions around inheritance and proposes ways to engage with architecture and its legacies critically.

Tabari Artspace, DIFC
Chafa Ghaddar, Beneath Latent Skies

Until 27 April

Beneath Latent Skies sees Lebanese contemporary artist, Chafa Ghaddar tackle the notion of the body as a landscape and host of multiple agendas – a site of eroticism, violence, movement, temporality, love, despair and repair. Works see the artist adopt a contemporary approach to fresco and span installation, works on paper, wood and fabric.

Jameel Arts Center, Jaddaf Waterfront
An Ocean In Every Drop, Group Exhibition

Until April 3, 2023

This group exhibition brings together artworks from around the globe that explore human relationships to water. The show highlights the importance of water as a force that unites trade, history, culture, language and social relations.

XVA, Al Fahidi Neighborhood, Bur Dubai
Witnessing Us, Solimar Miller Solo

Until 6 March

“Witnessing us” reflects the artist’s desire to connect with the natural world and to examine the connection between humans and their environment. Miller’s drawings, paintings, photography, and silkscreen artworks document the wild botanicals as living witnesses of Earth.

The Thirdline, Alserkal Avenue
Gut Feelings: Part II, Hayv Kahraman Solo

Until 24 March

Painter Hayv Kahraman presents a series of new paintings and drawings that continue her ongoing scientific research and exploration into the effects of trauma on the body and the role of the gut in our healing process.

Volte, Alserkal Avenue
Temporal Twists: A Subversive Metalogue, Sheba Chhachhi Solo

Until 15 March

Temporal Twists charters Sheba Chhachhi’s oeuvre that spans four decades. Featured works include photographs, photo-video installations, and the artist’s signature animated lightboxes. Chhachhi’s art offers up meditations on questions about gendered bodies, subaltern histories, and the relationship between humans and the natural world.