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.

Maitha Abdalla is a multi-disciplinary Emirati artist born in 1989. She offers an alluring blend of performance, painting, and sculpture to the field of contemporary art. Through her unique amalgamation of film, photography, and theatrical elements, Abdalla’s work can reach deep into themes such as mythology, folklore, and psychology. Her artistic journey is bold-the exploration of identity, vulnerability, and social conditioning-eloquently created through a lens of drama and abstraction. She is incredibly insightful in commenting on the self through both the body and medium to voice the complexities of the human experience with every work.

Maitha Abdalla is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting and sculpture, film, and performance in an inquiry into personal identity, cultural narratives, and the human condition. Born in 1989 and having obtained her Bachelor of Visual Arts from Zayed University in 2015, Abdalla is a central figure in the UAE’s contemporary art scene.

Abdalla is highly influenced by the constructed and performative nature of theatre, the ability to create a place within the performative realm that furthers a conceptual space which questions and rethinks the frames of social dictations, personal experiences, and cultural memories. Fantastical characters combined with surreal landscapes invite viewers into a world somewhere between reality and imagination within her often created works. Abdalla draws her influences from folklore and mythological inspirations, seeking within the stories that have so long impacted Emirati culture. Working with ancient tales, intertwined with themes taken from more modern connotations, her art reflects not only on the past but also challenges contemporary social conditioning. The thematic content of her works frequently relates to gender roles, societal expectations, and psychological explorations; these provide an intimate touch to her works while making them universally relatable.

Abdalla’s practice often interrogates the self, as she builds characters that represent varied personas of herself. These characters live in constricted domestic settings-a metaphor, perhaps, for the constraints placed on them by society. It is in such spaces that the vulnerabilities of the characters become exposed, and their turmoil may be shared at some subliminal level with the viewer. For Abdalla, art is not only a medium of expression but one of confrontation; thus, the opportunity to research and question the ideas and experiences that have shaped her world. It is through such investigations of the self that she has been able to create works of art that simultaneously vibrate on both personal and universal levels-her characters and scenes personifying emotions and narratives that many can identify with.

Abdalla assumes a unique bodily attitude of creation in her art. Often, with thick textures of oil and acrylic paint rich in detail and emotion, she uses her hands to apply paint. The gestural movements-like tracing her figure with smears of charcoal-enable her body to be an active and integral part of the very creation process. This technique reveals Abdalla’s considerate opinion of art as an extended performance-that every brushstroke or charcoal mark is, literally, a sequel to the performance in her tussle between abstraction and representation. The physical aspect of her work adds another layer of depth to her exploration of identity since it really underlines the relationship between the body and mind, and, equally, the self and the external world.

Abdalla’s work tends to be dramatic and melancholic, an emotion enhanced by the theatrical and performative nature of her approach. This melancholy, however, is the bottom line for the power both in the character she creates and in treading hard subjects such as social conditioning and gender. Her artwork fluctuates between vulnerability and being empowered while her characters confront those societal norms that want to contain them. It thus sets up a duality that has come to typify Abdalla’s work: offering viewers and opportunity for reflection about personal experiences of vulnerability and strength, or identity.

Khaled Al Jabri’s foray into becoming a caricature artist began at a very early age and was deeply rooted in a love for art and humour. Born and raised in Abu Dhabi, Khaled was always fascinated by the way daily life would take shape and find moments to make it into a quick-witted illustration. His love for comics combined with a strong attachment to Emirati culture has influenced his style of caricature art in such a way that it can only meld humour with cultural commentary. The most important project for Khaled in the world of comics was Harabat, through which he earned recognition because of his incomparable style and whiteness. This title became a passport in his career, showing how humorous incidents of light-hearted humour combined with relatable scenarios often referring to the lives of Emiratis. Harabat was the starting point for what was going to be a successful journey in the world of art.

Following Harabat, Khaled continued to refine his style, influenced by both traditional and contemporary Emirati life. His work focuses on the intricacies of everyday interactions, teasing out the humour in modern UAE life without ever losing sight of respect for the culture and heritage of his country.

Social media has been key in the rise of cartoonist Khaled Al Jabri. His Instagram profile is a kind of digital gallery where he posts his comics from time to time; he has thousands of followers on Instagram. By doing so, Khaled pokes fun at everything, from everyday life to cultural phenomena in the United Arab Emirates. Instagram helped him reach a much larger audience than before, but most importantly, it gave him space for direct contact with fans. His relatable content makes him resonate with people of different backgrounds with the humour in his comics. Be it the traffic jam in Abu Dhabi or the celebration of traditional Emirati weddings, Khaled’s comics are light-hearted yet meaningful depictions of life in the UAE.

One of the distinctive attributes of Khaled’s work has been to use Emirati culture in his art. Many of his comics deal with traditional topics related to family, hospitality, and daily routines of the Emiratis, but done in a humorous manner. Other than entertaining, Khaled allows his audiences to appreciate the culture of the Emiratis more. His characters have often resembled the common man-the one whom you might easily locate on Abu Dhabi’s crowding streets or at the souq. It’s that reliability that gives him success, as his audience can find themselves in the illustrations. From societal norms to the more benign moments of humour in life, Khaled balances satire and pride in culture.

Khaled Al Jabri’s artistic journey is a perfect example of humour in art. Creating caricatures, he merged Emirati traditional culture with the modern life of people and gave unique and amusing insights that have grasped the attention of all kinds of people. Continuing the making and sharing process, Khaled does not only keeps his followers smiling but also contributes to the growing landscape of art in the United Arab Emirates.