Abu Dhabi Art 2025 Unveils Visual Campaign Artist For 17th Edition

The 17th edition of Abu Dhabi Art is set to take place from Nov. 19 to 23 at Manarat Al Saadiyat. Hosted by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi), the event will feature Emirati artist Shaikha Al Mazrou as the Visual Campaign Artist for 2025.

Al Mazrou's selection highlights her powerful impact on the UAE's evolving art scene. Abu Dhabi Art remains a key driver in the growth of the UAE's art market. As the centerpiece of a year-round program, the fair includes exhibitions, commissions, and educational initiatives.

Each year, a chosen artist shapes the fair's visual identity, and for 2025, Shaikha Al Mazrou will take on this role. Represented by Lawrie Shabibi Gallery in Dubai, she has been recognized for her innovative contributions to contemporary art in the region, WAM reported.

In 2020, she won the Paulo Cunha e Silva Art Prize and was also a finalist for the Louvre Abu Dhabi Richard Mille Art Prize. In addition to her artistic career, she serves as an Assistant Arts Professor of Visual Arts at NYU Abu Dhabi.

"Shaikha participated in our 2017 edition of Abu Dhabi Art as a Beyond Emerging Artist, and we are thrilled to see the progression in her work at this stage in her career. She has become one of the most successful artists of her generation in the UAE," Abu Dhabi Art Director Dyala Nusseibeh said.

"The series we have chosen to work with for the visual campaign and visual feel of the fair, offers an exploration of materiality, a repurposing of discarded matter from fabrication sites in the UAE, a certain experimentation or playfulness in creating folds in her work with their attendant unfoldings referencing infinite moments of becoming," Nusseibeh added.

At the fair, Al Mazrou will showcase Beyond All Measures (2024), a brass artwork created through oxidation. The piece uses the horizon as a metaphor for boundaries and how they shape human perception.

Since brass naturally changes over time due to heat and oxygen, the artwork symbolizes shifting perspectives and encourages viewers to rethink their place in the world. Al Mazrou's work is influenced by minimalism and conceptual art, drawing inspiration from Modernist and Bauhaus artists like Paul Klee, Carl Andre, and Wassily Kandinsky.

She combines industrial materials, such as electronic waste and construction elements, with bold colors and geometric forms. Her abstract sculptures explore ideas of space, tension, and physical presence.