Until 7 June 2026, Foundry Downtown Dubai is hosting SUPERMARKET, an exhibition that features 35 UAE-based independent creatives and examines the increasingly complex relationship between art, commerce, visibility, and cultural value. Conceived as a platform for artists who work outside traditional gallery representation, the show encourages new forms of engagement between artists, collectors, and the wider public. SUPERMARKET does not position contemporary art as an exclusive domain. Instead, it seeks to make the experience of encountering and acquiring artworks more accessible, fostering dialogue around how art circulates within contemporary society.
The exhibition’s title deliberately borrows the language of retail. By invoking the familiar image of the supermarket, the project draws attention to the systems through which art pieces are displayed, marketed, consumed, and assigned value. Yet the exhibition does not reduce artistic production to a mere commodity. It uses this tension as a critical framework, inviting visitors to consider how cultural products are shaped by visibility, narrative, reputation, and market structures. In a moment when contemporary art is intertwined with branding, social media, and accelerated forms of circulation, SUPERMARKET asks what it means to “shop” for art and how perceptions of worth are formed.
Presented as a selling exhibition with works offered at accessible price points, SUPERMARKET also supports the development of a broader collector base. By lowering some of the barriers that often surround contemporary art collecting, the exhibition proposes a more direct relationship between artists and audiences. Accessibility here is not simply economic but cultural. The show invites visitors who may be unfamiliar with the art market to engage with contemporary practices in an environment that prioritises curiosity, discovery, and exchange over exclusivity.
The participating artists represent a wide spectrum of backgrounds, disciplines, and visual languages. Together they offer a snapshot of the remarkable diversity that characterises the UAE’s contemporary creative landscape. Some of these artists are already recognised within the UAE’s independent art scene for practices that engage with questions of identity, migration, memory, urban experience, and contemporary culture.
Afrorabian is known for artworks that explore multicultural identity and the intersections between African and Arab heritage. Artists such as Laura Puscasu and Faxon often move between illustration, design, and contemporary visual culture, while Preschelle Ann Biqueras and Ron John contribute perspectives shaped by the multicultural realities of life in the UAE.
Other participants bring highly personal and experimental approaches to image-making and material practice. Alina El Assadi, Asareh Ebrahimpour, and Nessma Djouhri contribute to a broader conversation around contemporary experiences of belonging, cultural memory, and transformation. Farah Soltani creates works inspired by everyday objects while probing the act of seeing and the limitless potential of reinterpretation. Ghalia Kalaji, famous for her layered, expressive painting style, often explores feminine identity and emotional states through colour and abstraction.
Artists such as Anita Shishani, Juhayda AlBitar, and Rabab Tantawy (whose art is influenced by creatives like Paul Guiragossian and Henri Matisse) engage with themes connected to personal narratives, social histories, and the complexities of regional identity. Meanwhile, figures including Fats Patrol, Mr Shark, and ANTI MUSE reflect the influence of street culture, graphic aesthetics, and alternative modes of artistic production that continue to reshape contemporary visual expression in the Gulf. Also featured is Fink 22, widely known for his colourful art pieces, one-line faces, that comment on themes like identity and human connection.
The exhibition also displays art pieces by Adele Bea Cipste, whose practice captures embodied experiences of space; her recent work investigates personal memory and urban transformation in the UAE. Jude Maharmeh examines abstraction through form, material, and light. Drawing on architectural language, her artworks explore the subtle interactions between built environments and aesthetic experience. Solimar Miller focuses on the world of nature and addresses climate change. Her drawings and hand-silk-screening prints highlight the unique qualities of Dubai’s indigenous flora.
SUPERMARKET spotlights the fluidity that increasingly characterises artistic practice today. Many of the featured creatives work across multiple disciplines, combining painting, illustration, photography, mixed media, digital processes, and design. This interdisciplinary spirit mirrors the cultural environment of Dubai itself, where artists often move between commercial, independent, and experimental contexts. Rather than presenting a unified aesthetic position, the show embraces multiplicity and allows contrasting approaches to coexist within a shared framework of visibility and exchange.
Ultimately, SUPERMARKET functions as both an exhibition and a critical proposition. It foregrounds the realities of artistic production within contemporary economies while simultaneously opening space for reflection on how artworks acquire meaning and worth. By bringing together independent practitioners working across diverse media and cultural perspectives, the exhibition offers visitors an opportunity to encounter the richness of the UAE’s creative scene beyond conventional market structures. In doing so, it challenges assumptions about collecting, visibility, and cultural legitimacy, proposing a more open and participatory model of engagement with contemporary art. Through its combination of accessibility, critical inquiry, and artistic diversity, SUPERMARKET captures many of the questions currently shaping contemporary artistic practice in Dubai and beyond.
To get more information about the exhibition, please go to its official web page.
In addition, you might be interested in visiting The Inaugural Exhibition at Tatintsian Gallery and In the Wake of Time in the DIFC.
Source: www.openspace.ae