Islamic Arts Magazine presents a group exhibition of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art at the gallery in 2011, when it was called Artspace, with works by Kamal Boullata, Omar El Nagdi, Alaa Ismail and Hussein Madi.
The feature introduces each artist with a short biography and images courtesy of the gallery. Omar El Nagdi, born in Cairo in 1931, is described as an Egyptian symbolist whose works of the 1960s and 1970s were built from repetitions of the Arabic numeral one, which is also the letter alef, and whose recent canvases use calligraphy in black, white and gold leaf. The Iraqi calligrapher Alaa Ismail, born in 1974 and trained in Baghdad, is shown with two acrylic paintings from 2010.
Kamal Boullata, born in Jerusalem in 1942, is presented through his abstract, geometric works on division in Palestinian identity and separation from the homeland. The magazine recalls him sketching the patterns of the Dome of the Rock as a boy, and quotes him: "I keep reminding myself that Jerusalem is not behind me, it is constantly ahead of me." Three works from 2009 are reproduced, among them Al Wahid, al Wajid (The One, The Finder). The Lebanese painter and sculptor Hussein Madi, born in 1938, completes the group.
The article closes with a note on the gallery itself: launched in May 2003 at the Fairmont Dubai, with a programme of more than 20 artists, and by 2011 based at Gate Village in DIFC, where Tabari remains today.
