Artnet News published 8 Gulf Artists Defining the Region's New Cultural Renaissance by Rebecca Anne Proctor in December 2025. Asking curators, advisers and insiders which Gulf artists are on their radar, Proctor gathers eight names whose practices, though varied in medium, share what she calls an intimate openness. Two of them, Maitha Abdalla and Hashel Al Lamki, are represented by Tabari, and Abdalla's painting Allure (2020) illustrates the piece.
On Maitha Abdalla, the article describes surreal canvases of imaginative characters and performances centring on local folklore, femininity and domestic power relations. Maliha Tabari, who first presented the Emirati artist at the gallery in 2021 and later at Cromwell Place in London, says: "We were drawn to her painterly and performative language, which connects the body to its social conditions." Proctor notes that Abdalla, born in Khorfakkan in 1989, has shown at the 15th Sharjah Biennial and the 2025 Aichi Triennale in Japan.
The entry on Hashel Al Lamki, born in 1986, follows an Emirati artist who works with upcycled materials and natural pigments to explore the relationship between people and their environment, in paintings, sculpture and public installations. His exhibitions include the Sharjah Biennial, the Biennale de Lyon and the Gwangju Biennale. Proctor sets both artists within a Gulf art scene growing through new fairs, biennials and institutional support, from Art Basel Qatar to the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale.
