Launched in 2017. Each year, Abu Dhabi Art invites established and well-known artists to create site-specific works in cultural sites in Al Ain and the wider Abu Dhabi emirate, to activate these sites and draw new audiences to them. The works created by the commissioned artists are revealed during Abu Dhabi Art Fair and remain on show to the public for several months afterwards.
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Nujoom Alghanem is an Emirati poet, artist, and multi-award-winning film director. She has published nine books and produced numerous films including feature documentaries, short fiction, and art films. Her achievements in the arts have been recognized both nationally and internationally. In 2019, she was the solo artist of the UAE National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and in 2017, she was one of five artists that had participated in the same pavilion. Alghanem started her professional career in the early 1980s. She is regarded as a pioneer of modern poetry and contemporary art.
Nujoom Alghanem is a commissioned artist for Artist Commissions in Cultural Sites, Abu Dhabi Art 2023
Emirati artist Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim is part of the UAE's first generation of contemporary artists from the late 1980s, an avant-garde scene that included Hassan Sharif, Abdullah Al Saadi, Hussein Sharif, and Mohammed Kazem. Ibrahim’s work has been inspired by a lifelong relationship with the environment of Khorfakkan, his place of birth, with the Gulf of Oman on one side and the Hajar Mountains on the other. This deep connection to his local environment repeats itself throughout his studio practice, whether through his installations, drawings or objects, and the materials he has worked with for over three decades. His hand made objects are shaped like primitive tools, bones or parts of trees and appear to have been unearthed from some ancient den, rather than handcrafted. His works on paper reveal his own form of language - inscriptions, lines and abstract forms that are reminiscent of ancient cave drawings - marking time and memory through meditative repetition.
Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim is 2023 Visual Campaign Artist and he is represented by Dubai based Gallery Lawrie Shabibi.