I am not an art guru, and I am definitely not an artist. But I have always been fascinated by people who feel the need to create — people who explore, imagine, and turn ideas into something tangible. So before the big and highly anticipated opening of Art Dubai on May 15 fully arrived, I went there one day in advance. How does it feel?

Well, in short: immersive, overwhelming in the best possible way, and somehow still able to make you feel completely lost.

Because Art Dubai is exactly the kind of place where collectors, curators, artists, and people who “don't really know much about art” somehow all end up sharing the same rooms, staring at the same works, and trying to make sense of them in completely different ways.

So this isn't really a strict guide to “the only things worth seeing”. Think of it more as a small starting point — a way to navigate the atmosphere and highlight a few details that quietly deserve your attention.

So here we go: a closer look inside one of the region’s most anticipated art events.

This year marks the 20th edition of Art Dubai, running from May 15–17 at the ever-familiar Madinat Jumeirah. As always, the fair brings together contemporary, modern, and digital art, alongside both international and Dubai-based galleries.

So before you get completely lost inside the halls, here is a very quick breakdown:

Efie Gallery

This year, Efie Gallery surprises everyone not just with the artworks it brought, but also with the scale of its presentation: eight artists working across completely different visual worlds.

For those especially into photography, keep an eye out for Aïda Muluneh — the Ethiopian photographer known for her striking, highly stylised portraits exploring womanhood and wider African society — alongside Samuel Fosso, whose famous self-portraits play with identity by transforming himself into completely different personas and historical figures.

For me though, the real visual gravity of the exhibition came through scale — the kind of works that completely take over the room before you even properly process them. One of the standout pieces is Yaw Owusu’s Something from Nothing — a work created from discarded coins, transforming everyday financial objects into something almost archaeological.

And then comes Abdoulaye Konaté’s enormous Tombouctou installation, built from layered and woven dyed cloth. Monumental in scale, the piece feels somewhere between architecture and textile — absorbing you long before you even begin properly analysing it.

NIKA Project Space

Dubai-based NIKA Project Space returned this year with four artists, each bringing completely different geographies and visual languages into the space.

The one that personally stayed with me the most was Ali Kaeini and his work Eclipse. Working across mixed media — dyes, fabric, acrylic, and spray paint — Kaeini builds layered abstract surfaces that quietly explore themes of cultural memory and identity.

These are the kind of pieces you unexpectedly spend a long time standing in front of: the more you look, the more details slowly begin revealing themselves.

Alongside Kaeini, the gallery also presented Adel Abidin with his detailed Diptych, and Katya Muromtseva, whose works explored her deeply personal relationship with her sister through a quiet visual language of gestures, signs, and emotional codes understood only between the two of them.

Gallery Isabelle

Gallery Isabelle brought together four artists working across very different mediums and generations.

First comes Hassan Sharif — one of the pioneers of contemporary art in the UAE, who returned from England and moved away from the abstract calligraphy trends dominating the region at the time.

Alongside him is Mohamed Kazem, originally trained in music, whose works try to turn intangible things like sound, movement, light, and waves into something physical and lasting, and Fereydoun Ave, whose works mix mythological regional figures with tiny everyday objects, suggesting that large cultural myths are often built from small human experiences.

But probably the biggest emotional pull of the booth for me came from Raed Yassin — the Lebanese artist participating in this year’s Venice Biennale.

The works presented at Art Dubai came from his Smoking, Dancing and Kissing series. The original photographs were taken back in 2013, but for this version the artist recreated them as silk embroideries in 2026. Using images from his own childhood, the works transform personal memories into something softer and more tactile.

Aisha Alabbar Gallery

Aisha Alabbar Gallery remains one of the leading spaces focused on female Emirati artists in the UAE, so it made perfect sense that this year’s booth brought together four Emirati artists alongside Iranian sculptor Armin Najib.

One of the first artists catching attention was Layla Juma, whose architectural background clearly shapes her visual language through geometry, and layered compositions. Interestingly though, her paper-based works shown at Art Dubai felt very different from her earlier style — something even the gallery representative pointed out herself.

Alongside her comes Alia Hussain Lootah, whose practice moves between visual art, workshops, and creative education for children, and Najat Makki — one of the pioneering figures of Emirati contemporary art and among the first Emirati women to study fine art abroad in Cairo.

And finally there is Armin Najib, whose works combine metal, magnets, and unusual material constructions into futuristic-looking sculptural pieces — and yes, the interview with him is actually coming soon.

Dima Srouji

(represented by Ab-Anbar Gallery)

Every gallery at Art Dubai tries to bring its strongest names to the stage, and Ab-Anbar Gallery did the same. While every work at the booth deserved attention, the one that quietly stayed with me the most was Dima Srouji’s presentation.

What makes her practice especially interesting is the approach itself — she almost works like a researcher or archivist first, and an artist second. In the presented works, Srouji focuses on Sebastia, an ancient archaeological village in Palestine from which many historical objects were excavated and later taken to museums and collections abroad.

The installation uses archival images from the American Colony in Palestine, enlarged onto glass panels and placed inside steel lantern-like structures that would traditionally hold candles. The result feels historical, but also deeply personal.

Kevork Mourad

(represented by Leila Heller Gallery)

Kevork Mourad honestly became my personal discovery of Art Dubai. And the way his works slowly revealed themselves made the whole experience even better — first through the smaller pieces quietly hidden inside the booth, and then through the large-scale Art Dubai special projects like Tower and Memories of Stone standing outside the halls.

What makes his work feel so alive is how deeply connected it is to his own life story. Mourad was born in Syria, later moved to Armenia in the early 1990s to study art, and eventually settled in the United States, where he has now lived for more than 26 years. Because of that, his identity constantly shifted between cultures, languages, and places — and you can really feel this movement inside the works themselves.

A lot of his practice explores what it means to carry several identities at once without fully belonging to only one place. But instead of speaking about migration in a heavy or overly direct way, he builds these emotional spaces that people can almost step into themselves.

And honestly, once you hear him explain the works, every material choice suddenly starts making sense. The surface isn't paper but fabric — because fabric carries this idea of movement and migration. You can fold it, place it inside a bag, transport it somewhere else, and unfold it again, almost like memory itself travelling between countries.

The shades also feel deeply intentional. They create this feeling of oxidation, fading, and slow disappearance, as if the memories inside the work are dissolving over time but never fully vanishing.

And even the cut-out spaces within the artworks suddenly feel completely in place.

Lana Khayat

(represented by Hafez Gallery)

Lana Khayat is already a long-time Sandy Times favourite, but even putting that aside, there was no way to skip her booth at Art Dubai this year. The artist presented a completely new body of work created specifically for the 20th edition of Art Dubai, featuring 18 works spanning ceramics, stitched paintings, and a large-scale installation.

The central visual element throughout the series is the lily motif, created from silk sourced from Spain, which she cuts and hand-stitches directly onto the canvas.

One of the most beautiful details in the presentation was actually the framed backside of one of the artworks, revealing all the stitching, threads, and construction usually hidden from viewers. Instead of concealing the process, Khayat turned the “work in progress” itself into part of the final piece.

But the work that probably deserves the most attention is My Gift to the City.

Barjeel Art Foundation: Pulse

One of the UAE’s major art institutions based in Sharjah, Barjeel Art Foundation obviously couldn't miss an event as big as Art Dubai. So for the fair’s 20th edition, the foundation presented Pulse — a curated selection of 20 major works from its collection, directly reflecting the anniversary theme.

The idea behind Pulse is to capture the “pulse” of the Arab world through art, showing how artists responded to major social, political, and cultural shifts across different decades and countries.

And honestly, every piece inside feels like a true masterpiece — especially once you realise the names behind them. Among the featured artists are Mahmoud Said, one of the pioneers of modern Egyptian art, Samia Halaby, a major figure in Palestinian abstraction, Etel Adnan, the hugely influential Lebanese-American artist and writer, and Mohammed Melehi, one of the leading figures of Moroccan modernism.

Dubai Collection exhibition: Made Forward

Probably one of the true hidden treasures of Art Dubai this year, Made Forward presents works from Dubai Collection — the city’s first institutional collection of modern and contemporary art.

What makes the exhibition especially interesting is that many of the works come directly from important private collections across the UAE, including pieces owned by Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, and other major regional collectors.

Ministry of Culture Exhibition: When the Familiar Becomes Unfamiliar

This special project presented by the Ministry of Culture brings together three Emirati artists — Karima Al Shomely, Rawdha Al Ketbi, and Sara Ahli — all exploring how familiar everyday materials can be transformed into something completely unexpected.

The works move between fabric, sculpture, and object, often making viewers question what they are actually looking at. But despite the contemporary forms, the patterns and references remain deeply tied to Emirati culture and local traditions, including Bukazuwa — the striped decorative pattern — and Boutire, a floral motif whose name literally translates to “flower”.

Art Dubai x Alserkal Avenue: Moving Image Programme

Probably the place inside Art Dubai where you stop, slow down, and actually think — very much in the spirit of Alserkal Avenue itself, the programme’s collaborator.

The project is a curated film and video art programme bringing together video art, experimental cinema, short films, and screen-based installations. Large screen moves visitors from one artist to another, with each work unfolding slowly over several minutes rather than demanding instant attention.

You realistically won't manage to properly see every single work or gallery anyway, but having a small list of “must-visit” spaces genuinely helps.

Artists, gallerists, and curators are there to share their work. Even if you feel like you are asking the most obvious question in the world, that is still how conversations begin. And honestly, some of the best parts of Art Dubai happen through random discussions rather than the artworks alone.

Art fairs can become overwhelming very quickly. Walk outside, grab a coffee, sit down for a bit, reset your brain, then come back in again.

If you move from artwork to artwork too quickly, your brain starts processing everything like Instagram Reels — impressive, and instantly forgettable. Slow down a little. Read the descriptions. Stand with the work for a moment longer than feels natural.