Arab News reports that the jewellery house Boucheron named the Emirati artist Maitha Abdalla the first recipient of its Coup de Coeur award at MENART Fair 2026 in Paris.
The award celebrates women artists from the Middle East and North Africa whose work challenges conventions. MENART Fair returned to Paris from 23 to 25 October 2026 for its seventh edition, under the theme Where is Home?
Abdalla was chosen for Hug My Land, a bronze sculpture about one metre high made in response to that theme. It shows a female figure folded inward, her arms wrapped around her body in a gesture of both vulnerability and protection. The work began as an embrace of the land and became an exploration of home as something carried within rather than defined by geography. "This work evokes an almost bodily relationship to the land: what it transmits to us, what we project onto it, and what we continue to carry within us when we move away," Abdalla said.
The article notes that Abdalla was born in Sharjah in 1989 and works across painting, sculpture, film, photography and performance, drawing on theatre, folklore and mythology to explore memory, psychology and social conditioning. Her work has been shown at Sharjah Biennial 15, the UAE National Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale and the Aichi Triennale 2025. Maitha Abdalla is represented by Tabari.
