The Dubai exhibition scene is looking pretty dashing this summer. Here are our top picks for you to escape the burning heat, and to be inspired and challenged in equal measure:

1. 21st Summer: Nasr Warour, XVA Gallery

Syrian artist Nasr Warour exhibits his newest work at XVA Gallery. Although originally focused on sculpture, Warour has recently turned to painting. This show presents his interpretations of the culture and history of his native Syria. The exhibition is particularly relevant as the artist is heading to the US and saying farewell to the UAE, which has been his home for 21 years.

“10 years after moving to Dubai I showcased a review of my work at the Al Shamsi Art House in Sharjah. And today as I start a new chapter, I am grateful to be getting the opportunity to say thanks to a city that has been my home for 21 years with this second review. These formative years cannot be measured by time but by success, love, and peace.” Nasr Warour

The exhibition closes on 21 July.

2. Anuar Khalifi: Palimpsests, The Third Line

The Third Line Gallery presents Anuar Khalifi’s solo exhibition, featuring his most recent body of works. Based between Spain and Morocco, Khalifi’s work explores identity and traverses worlds, both real and imaginary, as do his protagonists. Khalifi’s paintings depict worlds that are modeled in the artist’s studio, initially conceived in the artist’s mind. These imagined worlds are autobiographical, exposing versions of himself in different forms of gender, age, and background. Expect whimsical moments, lots of beauty and plenty of room for exploration.

The exhibition closes on 30 July.

3. Out of Place, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde

This summer, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde showcases a collective exhibition of Vikram Divecha, Mohammed Kazem, :mentalKLINIK, Haleh Redjaian, Hassan Sharif, and Raed Yassin. As the title suggests, our place in this ever-changing world is constantly shifting and puts us out of sync with time. The exhibition Out of Place investigates notions around space, surface, and debates whether we are articulated by our material interactions? Be prepared to get challenged and pushed out of your comfort zone.

The exhibition closes on 31 July.

4. Sedimentary Matters: Caline Aoun, Grey Noise

Grey Noise presents the second solo exhibition of artist Caline Aoun, a Lebanese artist based between Beirut and London, featuring works on paper. The exhibition addresses the permanent space that we enter in and the objects that we encounter that are often static or consistent. In this exhibition, Aoun examines how such objects can leave deposits and traces in space, like a river delta, and how within the process of the gallery’s activities, tangible forms can be created from the deposition of otherwise invisible traces and signs that bear witness to changes and cycles.

The exhibition closes on 31 July.

5. Dia al-Azzawi: The Lebanon Works, Meem Gallery

Meem Gallery treats us with a solo exhibition on the celebrated Iraqi modernist Dia al-Azzawi. The show focuses on works the artist has recently created in his studio in Lebanon next to Nabu Museum, echoing a fresh vibrancy that may have sprung from the change of scenery – al-Azzawi was based in London for quite a while – a metropolis that arguably presents a change to the tranquil and picturesque northern Lebanese coastal town of Chekka, close to the city of Batroun. We expect plenty of oh-my-god moments, in other words great beauty and insightful ideas.

The exhibition closes on 12 August.

6. Yazan Abu Salameh, Zawyeh Gallery

Yazan Abu Salameh’s works on paper are on view at Zawyeh Gallery. The Palestinian artist was born in 1993 in Jerusalem and studied Fine Arts at Dar Al-Kalima College in Bethlehem graduating in 2011. Abu Salameh’s artworks reflect the courage of a young artist: he uses a mixture of concrete, pebbles and wires mixed with Lego blocks and drawings to reveal childhood memories and Palestinian neighborhoods from a bird’s eye view.

The exhibition closes on 21 August.

7. Lucky 13: Maxime Cramatte, The Foundry

The Foundry presents us a dash of pop art for this summer through the work of Swiss-born Maxime Cramatte. The artist’s practise is heavily influenced by advertisements and semiotics, enabling him to build his own iconography, a unique aesthetic emerging from the side streets of old Dubai, where Cramatte lives and finds inspiration. Think pop art, Kushti wrestling, a shawarma rotisserie blended with ice and served at an underground DJ set – that brings you to the flavour of Satwa 3000, the collective headed by Cramatte. A story of powerful, street respected aesthetics, yes, but also one of appreciative of cross-culture community building. When it comes to the exhibition, expect immersive installations, lots of colours, some neon lights and an invitation into his unique world.

The exhibition closes on 25 August.

8. Jaber Al Azmeh, Afra Al Dhaheri, Hera Büyüktaşcıyan and Seher Shah, Green Art Gallery

Green Art Gallery presents an exhibition grouping the works of four artists: Jaber Al Azmeh, Afra Al Dhaheri, Hera Büyüktaşcıyan and Seher Shah. Photographer Al Azmeh’s oeuvre investigates the effects of the Syrian revolution on the social landscape, while Al Dhaheri’s works explore the Emirati experience of rapid urban and social change. In Büyüktaşcıyan’s photo prints, she integrates metaphors rooted from local myths, historic and iconographic elements that are bound to unfold new possible narratives weaving their connection to identity, memory, space and time. Finally, Shah’s work is based on his experiences in the architectural and artistic field to define space, landscape, objects and aesthetics through a variety of mediums, including drawing, printmaking and sculpture.

The exhibition closes on 28 August.

9. Try to Catch the Moon: Amir Khojasteh, Carbon 12

Carbon 12 presents Amir Khojasteh’s, an Iranian rising star, solo exhibition Try to Catch the Moon, examining the impossibility of this physical endeavour, and simultaneously, the triumphant overcoming thereof. Suspended within a twilight zone, with forms that overlay and intertwine, fold and unfurl, his paintings and sculptures tread the line between rest and unrest, peace and chaos. Khojasteh’s practice weaves and untangles narratives from art history. In a series of paintings from 2018, for example, he cited Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon Crossing The Alps. The works examined the warped significance Napoleon Bonaparte attached to his perceived image and title, and considered the painting’s exploitation of such factors for propaganda. This exhibition builds from his previous work, now focusing on two symbols: the moon and the horse. The artist explores the act of catching the moon as a metaphorical representation for achievement and victory, and the horse as a means for man towards greatness and power. Bold, sweeping brushstrokes dominate the canvases, comparable to the dynamic manner Bonaparte chose to be depicted.

The exhibition closes on 6 September.

10. Under Construction Part II, Lawrie Shabibi

Lawrie Shabibi Gallery’s Under Construction Part II brings together the works of Farhad Ahrarnia, Mounir Fatmi, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, Yazan Khalili, Driss Ouadahi, and Larissa Sansour. Expanding on the notion of uncompleted projects, or works in progress, the exhibition presents a series of evolving paradigms where histories are re-evaluated, cultural artefacts are re-examined, and multiple futures are explored.

The exhibition closes on 9 September.

11. Summer Collective: Strata, Ayyam Gallery

Ayyam Gallery presents a group exhibition featuring the works of Asaad Arabi, Abdul-Karim Majdal Al-Beik, Farzad Kohan, Mouteea Murad, Tammam Azzam, and Thaier Helal. The title of the exhibition is derived from latin meaning ‘something that has been laid down’, i. e. layers, which is the premise of this group exhibition. Accordingly, the multi-media artworks focus on strata, not only as a significant meaning, but also as an essential technique for each artist.

The exhibition closes on 10 September.

12. Silent Day: Eduardo Perez-Cabrero, Leila Heller Gallery

Eduardo Perez-Cabrero’s solo exhibition Silent Day explores life from his epidermis, captures vibrations and transmits them to his pieces directly. His work is refreshingly free and unconstrained by convention. In this new show at Leila Heller Gallery, the artist presents eight pieces, from which the installation titled I will take you up to the stars occupies the exhibition’s main wall with more than 400 pieces of blue ceramics. In other words, be ready to be mesmerised. Perez-Cabrero’s work is characterised by the influence of the Mediterranean Sea and its culture – an exaltation of joie de vivre. If you can’t make it to the South of France this year, this exhibition will act as a remedy of sorts.

The exhibition closes on 15 September.

13. Scars by Daylight, Tabari Artspace

This summer, Tabari Artspace presents Scars by Daylight, Maitha Abdalla’s, an Emirati mixed media artist, first solo show at the gallery. The Dubai exhibition is presented in parallel with Abu Dhabi Art’s group show Beyond: Emerging Artists at Cromwell Place, London. For this exhibition Abdallah has produced a body work across varied media interrogating the gravity and uncertainty of the in-between years of adolescence. Tradition, transformation and paradox are at the core of this exhibition as the individual transitions from youth to adulthood, shifting in outer appearance, social status, and identity. Abdalla perceives this formative and liminal time in our life journey to be a dream-like moment where fantasy and reality conflate. We are thrilled to see this exhibition – there’s nothing quite like an engaging coming of age story, especially one inspired by theatre, fantasy, tradition and ritual.

The exhibition closes on 30 September.

Featured image: Courtesy of Anuar Khalifi.