The art season continues across the UAE with galleries and institutions in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah presenting a range of exhibitions before the summer slowdown.
Current highlights include The UAE is Beautiful at Cultural Foundation, a group photography exhibition reflecting on the country’s landscapes, people and identity; Cross Scripts at Lawrie Shabibi, which brings together art, design, architecture and craft; and Body Quotidian at Sharjah Art Foundation, which places recent works by Laila Majid and Inaam Zafar in dialogue.
Together, the exhibitions reflect a wide range of practices across the country, from photography and works on paper to sculpture, design, craft and painting.
Here are seven exhibitions to see across the UAE.
1. The UAE is Beautiful at Cultural Foundation
The UAE is Beautiful brings together the works of locally based photographers in a wide-ranging exhibition exploring the country’s landscapes, people and sense of identity.
Inspired by a quote from President Sheikh Mohamed that describes the country as “beautiful” and “a role model”, the exhibition is led by artist Khalid Al Hammadi and presents a collective portrait of the nation through themes of resilience, belonging and human connection.
Participating artists include Hamid Badr Musharbek, Ola Ibrahim Allouz, Reem Ali Abdullah, Abdulla Ibrahim Alhattawi, Yousuf Ahmed Al Qasimi, Salem Sarhan Al Sawafi, Rami Escandar Abboud, Shoaib Ahmed, Alia Sultan Al Joker, Mohammed Khaled Almessabi, Aisha Alhammadi and Noora Alhammadi.
Together, the photographs move between heritage and modernity, capturing personal and shared experiences across the Emirates.
Alongside the exhibition, visitors are invited to contribute their own photographs through a community initiative developed with Emirates Post. A dedicated postbox installed at the venue allows residents and visitors to submit images reflecting their own connection to the UAE, expanding the exhibition into a broader public archive of memory and place.
Until July 14; Abu Dhabi
2. Cross Scripts at Lawrie Shabibi
Cross Scripts, Lawrie Shabibi’s summer exhibition, brings together artists and designers whose practices move between art, design, architecture and craft.
The group show spans painting, sculpture, furniture, craft and jewellery. It considers how objects carry meaning beyond function and how making can become a shared language. The exhibition reflects the region’s porous boundary between art and design, where geometry, ornament, utility and material traditions often overlap.
Participating artists and designers include Hamra Abbas, Omar Al Gurg’s MODU Method, Farhad Ahrarnia, Sarah Almehairi, Kamrooz Aram, Bernhard Buhmann, Nada Debs, Areen Hassan, KAMEH, Nadine Kanso’s Bil Arabi, Mehdi Moutashar, Timo Nasseri, Driss Ouadahi and Ishmael Randall-Weeks. Works by Zein Daouk, Carlo Massoud, Mary-Lynn Massoud and Rasha Nawam are also presented by Iwan Maktabi.
Until July 31; Dubai
3. Under the Same Sky at Rizq Art Initiative
Under the Same Sky brings together 20 artists in the UAE in an exhibition reflecting on the experience of living, observing and creating within the country. The show considers how artists from different cultural backgrounds respond to the UAE through memory, material, landscape and everyday life.
The exhibition features both Emirati artists and long-term residents whose practices have been shaped by their time in the country. Works range from Maitha Al Omaira’s cyanotypes of the ghaf tree and Shamsa Al Mansoori’s mixed-media reflections on contemporary Emirati identity, to Tala Atrouni’s explorations of Palestinian tatreez and Simrin Mehra-Agarwal’s research-driven works examining ecology in the UAE.
Rather than presenting a singular narrative, the exhibition approaches the UAE as a layered and evolving space shaped by movement, coexistence and personal histories. Many of the participating artists draw from architecture, textiles, poetry and urban transformation, creating works that reflect both rootedness and constant change.
Conceptualised by chief curator Meena Vari, the exhibition positions the UAE’s cultural landscape as one defined by convergence and exchange.
Participating artists include Adrian Scicluna, Ahmad Al Areef, Anne Marie Lacroix, Dina Nazmi Khorchid, Elham Shafaei, Farah Soltani, Hala El Abora, Karine Roche, Mouza Almheiri, Nikolay Koshelev, Nour Hage, Rabila Kidwai, Sara Al Sulaimani, Shamma Al Mazrouie, Sophiya Khwaja, Zahra Shafie and others.
Until July 31; Abu Dhabi
4. Interoception at Iris Projects
Juma Al Haj’s latest solo exhibition explores how moments of crisis are absorbed, processed and translated into artistic expression. Curated by Shamma Al Mheiri, Interoception takes its title from the body's ability to sense its internal state, and examines the emotional and psychological impact of living through uncertainty.
Developed in response to the missile attacks reported in the UAE in early 2026, the exhibition traces Al Haj’s return to painting as a means of processing fear, anxiety and disruption. Through layered surfaces, fragmented text and gestural mark-making, the artist transforms personal experiences into abstract works that reflect broader feelings of collective unease and resilience.
The exhibition marks a new chapter in Al Haj’s practice, which frequently draws on journaling, writing and sensory experiences as tools for self-reflection. Several works were created in the immediate aftermath of the attacks and evolved into a larger body of work that functions as a visual record of a period of uncertainty.
While rooted in a specific moment, the exhibition expands beyond its immediate context to consider wider questions of memory, embodiment and the ways individuals internalise crisis. The result is a deeply personal yet broadly resonant exploration of how emotional experiences can be translated into visual language.
Until August 6; Abu Dhabi
5. Seeing Ourselves at Bassam Freiha Art Foundation
Seeing Ourselves is a student-led photography exhibition developed through a year-long collaboration between Bassam Freiha Art Foundation and the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University.
The exhibition positions Emirati students as image-makers documenting their own experiences of the UAE through architectural, portrait and landscape photography. It was conceived partly as a response to the Bassam Freiha Private Collection, shifting authorship towards contemporary Emirati perspectives and allowing young artists to present the country.
The project brought together students from photography, graphic design and visual arts programmes. They worked across the stages of exhibition-making, including installation, branding, design and curatorial development.
Until August 31; Abu Dhabi
6. The Two Walks: Works on Paper Selected by Judy Karkour at Carbon 12
The Two Walks brings together new and archival works on paper by 14 artists at Carbon 12 in Alserkal Avenue.
Selected by Judy Karkour, the exhibition considers paper not as a preparatory material, but as a complete and expressive medium in its own right. The works range from drawing and collage to mixed media, using paper to explore memory, abstraction, environmental fragility, urban development and inner emotional states.
Participating artists include Sarah Almehairi, Amir Khojasteh, Bernhard Buhmann, Faris Alshafar, Nour Malas, Solimar Miller, Amba Sayal-Bennett, Andre Butzer, Monika Grabuschnigg, Mayar Obedo, Nadine Ghandour, Edgar Orlaineta, Olaf Breuning and Philip Mueller.
Until September 5; Dubai
7. Body Quotidian at Sharjah Art Foundation
Body Quotidian brings together recent works by Laila Majid and Inaam Zafar in an exhibition exploring the human body through metaphor, material and everyday experience.
Curated by Raja’a Khalid, assistant curator at Sharjah Art Foundation, the exhibition places Majid and Zafar’s sculptures, photographs and paintings in dialogue with one another. While their practices differ, both artists approach the body indirectly, through surfaces, silhouettes, domestic spaces and the materials that suggest flesh, heat, touch and presence.
The exhibition considers how bodies are perceived, altered and contained, particularly as technology continues to reshape ideas of youth, beauty and truth. Across the works, the body often appears in partial or suggested form, moving between intimacy, play, desire and mortality.
Until September 20; Sharjah
