Paris-based French artist Calixte channels her vibrant personality and love for freedom into her art as she abandoned her career in architecture for her true passion. Born in 1995, Calixte has carved out a niche in the contemporary art world by marrying the worlds of photography, urban culture, and cinematic storytelling together with bold, saturated colours. Her works are more than aesthetic pieces but social commentaries about the youth culture, urban lifestyle, painting a bright picture of present time while celebrating individuality and freedom.

Actually, for Calixte, moving from architecture to the world of art was not a change in career as much as taking a leap into a world where her true creative spirit would shine. A trained architect, it is Calixte’s background that brings structure and form to her vibrant emotionally charged works. Architecture is about precision, symmetry, and planning; art allows for complete freedom of expression-a juxtaposition well encapsulated in the unique style that is Calixte. Calixte grew up in France amidst a culture that created creativity and inspiration. As her architectural career developed, her attention turned to a far more freeing form of creativity-art. The world of architecture was filled with rules and regulations; it is in this world of art that Calixte found a feeling of freedom. With her mastery of oil paint, dynamic pieces burst with saturated colours leaping from the canvas as a clear means of voicing emotion and personality.

The root of Calixte’s work is in bold, vibrant colours-so vibrant, because she tries to portray freedom and authenticity. She has used saturated colours consciously, the way she broke herself free from the rigid controls of her previous profession, each stroke with a sense of release, enabling her to push through the conventional boundaries of the art techniques. Though impulsive, her style balances on the firm foundation of her architectural training, therefore presenting a fascinating balance between structure and abstraction. Her colours tend to be bright and very saturated, speaking to a sense of energy and vitality. For Calixte, colours speak so much louder than words and speak to a feeling that transcends language barriers. This is most apparent in her portraits of urban youth-the intensity of the colour palette reflecting the dynamic nature of street wear culture, which is a major influence on her work.

Much of the inspiration in Calixte’s work emanates from her eclectic influences that range from a love of cinema and photography, both elements that notably influence her artistic narratives. She is very fascinated by the way films record human stories, and for that reason, her paintings seem to be like a movie. The compositions of her works are film stills moments recording emotions and subtle expressions from real-life life experiences. Calixte’s work is informed by her being bathed in urban culture and street wear. For her, street fashion is not a fad; it’s a medium and expression of raw energy that characterizes the youth of today. She does this by infusing these influences into her art to form visual stories that really strike a chord with the modern audience. Combining her urban aesthetic with architectural precision makes her works raw, unfiltered, and appealing to lovers of art and generally anyone with feelings for modern street culture.

One of the most defining themes in Calixte’s work is how she is able to portray youth in its true form: raw, unfiltered, and full of life. Her portraits reach past the façade and into the emotional terrain of the individual being captured. From carefree and playful in street wear to contemplative when caught in reflective moments, creation from Calixte often feels like a form of social reporting-visuals of the youths of today sans embellishment. More than the aesthetic of the visuals, her work is about capturing the very essence of the people she shoots. It is through this that the relationship of her art with youth and urban life lets her work be so relatable, most especially to a younger audience who trace bits of themselves through the narratives she creates.

The ease with which Calixte takes herself from the graphic tablet to oil paints reflects the versatility of the artist. From traditional to digital mediums, she continues to embrace these for her unique texturing, techniques, and forms of expression. She does this with a depth and complexity brought about by digital precision interacting with the tactility of painting. Most often, her works border on true social reporting. It is in this duality that Calixte fits into both the world of traditional art and modern, contemporary spaces.

Afra Al Dhaheri is one of the better-known Emirati artists who uses her practice to address notions of time, fragility, and adaptability-concepts inextricably linked to how she grew up in the midst of very rapid changes in Abu Dhabi and the UAE. Sculpture, painting, and photography are some of the genres Afra Al Dhaheri employs to set up telling narratives that take viewers through every stage of her artistic process. Her peculiarity in repetition is just that eccentric trait of an individual which lets her not only stretch time within her work but also involves her rather closely in every stage of her creation.

Afra Al Dhaheri was born in Abu Dhabi, UAE, in 1988. She is one of the thriving voices within Emirati contemporary art. A lot of her meditative and many times experimental work reflects upon rapid transformations she has grown up with within the UAE. The rapid change in her motherland is at the core of her practice and is, therefore, constituted through the core ideas that support her thoughts on time, adaptation, and fragility. Using a wide range of media-sculpture, drawing, painting, photography, and printmaking-the works by Al Dhaheri challenge common perceptions of time and alteration. Her interest in these themes can be argued to have been born during her MFA at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design in the USA, completed in 2017. Much earlier, in 2014, she was an artist in residence under the Salama bint Hamdan Emerging Artists Fellowship in collaboration with Rhode Island School of Design. These experiences have importantly shaped her experimental style and thematic focus.

Among the leading methods Afra Al Dhaheri uses in her work is repetition. In the case of Al Dhaheri, repetition works in two different directions: to extend the moment in time for the viewer and to allow her to investigate the profundity and substance of every artistic phase. This is most manifestly evident in the case of her multimedia installations, where the replication of a form or concept at every turn asks the viewer to reconsider what had been at stake. Repetition also functions as one of the tools for the artist to capture evanescent time. In a world where everything is in constant motion-in the UAE, where development is at a fast pace-Al Dhaheri’s work acts like a reminder that one should stop and live the moment. With every repetition of elements in her work, the story lengthens and urges the viewer to get more involved with the hidden message.

Afra Al Dhaheri’s works are also an expression of her personal experience of adaptation, perhaps the most critical common thread in her work. Leveraging her practice of living in a time when immense cultural and architectural changes occurred in this region, she tells and navigates tugging forces between the old and the new. Rigid forms represent the rigor and permanence of tradition, while fragile materials symbolize the fragile and transient present moment. A perpetual dance between these two opposed forces is characteristic of her work. Fragility and adaptation allow Al Dhaheri’s works to capture nuanced experiences defined by people living within rapidly changing environments. The vulnerability appearing in her work is both personal and universal, reflecting the fragility of human experience in an ever-changing world.

Afra Al Dhaheri has had several important exhibitions of her work, both locally and internationally. Her solo shows include “Split Ends” at the Green Art Gallery in Dubai, 2021; “Inevitable Ephemera” presented by T+H Gallery, Boston, USA, 2016. These shows have been emblematic of her skill in reimagining such complexly philosophical and conceptual themes as visually engaging art. The group exhibitions she was a part of further and firmly established her standing among the avant-garde artists of her time. Group shows among others include “Beyond: Emerging Artists” at Cromwell Place in London in 2021 and Manarat Al Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi in 2020, where her work is put in relation to other emerging artists. These exhibitions allow viewers to engage with an investigation of adaptation, memory, and identity within the UAE’s ever-changing landscape.

The UAE is something more than just a wonder of breath-taking architecture; it’s a living, breathing art gallery. One of the artists who has played a major role in changing its cities into colourful pieces of artwork is Ramy Elzaghawy. Elzaghawy is known for his larger-than-life graffiti murals and has works beautifying some of the country’s most iconic spots, from Dubai’s W Hotel to Abu Dhabi’s Al Qana. His art mingles imagination with great technical skill, while his murals stand as one of the cornerstones of the emergent UAE urban artistic scene. What makes Elzaghawy’s work compelling is not just its size, but its soul.

The United Arab Emirates have become celebrated for their amazingly rich cultural heritage, marveling structures, and now, because of artists like Ramy Elzaghawy, for their vibrant urban art. Elzaghawy has emerged as one of the country’s most celebrated graffiti artists, painting public spaces into bright, contrasting colours with amazingly creative flair. Born and raised in the UAE, Elzaghawy is deeply connected with the country, not just for being his home but more so his muse. His works can be found at almost all the most striking places in the UAE, where each mural brings life and a unique story to the walls of these cities. While the UAE is typically associated with cutting-edge skyscrapers and luxury, it has also grown quietly into an open-air art gallery. In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the old buildings and public places have been transformed into a blank canvas from local to international artists. Street murals and large-scale graffiti installations have added a new dimension to the urban appeal of cities that are no longer just centres of commerce and tourism but also cultural hubs.

His work is characterized by vivid colours, detailed patterns, and the ability to transform any wall into a colourful work of art. It does indeed speak volumes to citizens and visitors alike in ways of offering a new perspective in viewing the beauty of the United Arab Emirates. Works from Ramy Elzaghawy can be found throughout some of the most iconic locations in the UAE. He has been doing graffiti murals that have awed audiences from all over the world-for example, at Bla Bla Dubai, whose larger-than-life mural of a lady really shows how he can balance technical precision with flair. Another prominent work is a green and yellow floral mural at W Hotel Palm Jumeirah that is so full of life and forms part of this modern hotel. His artistry does not involve one style or theme. His murals at Barasti, Zero Gravity, and Yas Marina can work their way into the surroundings while still making bold statements of creativity. The fact that he has been in a position to give vent to his creativity in diverse ways for different spaces and audiences itself is a fair testimony to his versatility as an artist.

His most ambitious projects to date is a mural one kilometer in length at Al Qana Abu Dhabi, done for the largest indoor adventure park in the region: Adrenark Adventure. This mural, having taken four months to execute, is in itself a manifestation of Elzaghawy’s commitment, skill, and passion for creating large-scale public art. It is an optical feast that mesmerizes anyone who experiences it. Elzaghawy does not miss the core of any project without preparing it with much diligence. He goes to the site of every mural and does calculations concerning light, movement, and texture with the aim of ensuring the piece will sit well within its surroundings.

This is partly because of how he goes about his preparation for any task; many times, his work meets and often exceeds requirements on the first attempt. This allows the clients in Elzaghawy’s case to view and trust in his vision, thereby loosening the reins to allow him to explore new concepts and push the envelope on the different capabilities his medium has to offer.

His strong attachment to the UAE drives his journey into art; though he currently works in most GCC countries, he still is interested in producing murals reflecting the UAE’s dynamism and forward-looking spirit. The country has embraced Elzaghawy’s work, and he, in turn, has become one of its most prominent artistic voices.