Firetti Contemporary

Presented during Alserkal Art Month, this collaboration between Firetti Contemporary and Jaipur Rugs explores the intersection of heritage and contemporary expression. Featuring works by Salmah Almansoori alongside hand-knotted carpets, the exchange reflects on memory, material, and the evolving dialogue between tradition and modern artistic practice. A meeting of texture, form, and cultural narratives across disciplines.

We are pleased to present Of the Palm by Salmah Almansoori at the Ministry of Culture Majlis during Make it in the Emirates. Using laser engraving on handmade palm paper, the series explores memory, material transformation, and the relationship between landscape, labour, and identity through layered surfaces and archival gestures. Special thanks to Walter Williams for his support and collaboration in making this presentation possible.

On view at Maraya Art Centre as part of “Who I Become” curated by @cimazzam Salmah Almansoori “I Was a Forgotten Moment”, 2024–2026 Acrylic on canvas Variable dimensions In this series, Salmah Almansoori brings overlooked objects back into focus, transforming fragments of everyday life into layered visual narratives. Through walking, observing, and collecting, she captures traces of spaces once inhabited, where small elements quietly hold memory. Through painting, these forgotten moments are reawakened. Color becomes a tool for re-seeing, preserving what might otherwise disappear into the background. #SalmahAlmansoori #WhoIBecome #MarayaArtCentre #ContemporaryArt #uaescene

Artwork highlight | “Of the Palm”, 2025-2026, On view at Maraya Art Centre as part of “Who I Become”, curated by Cima Azzam In this series, Salmah Almansoori explores the palm as a shifting material, unfolding through cycles, fragments, and transformation. Working with handmade palm paper and laser engraving, the works bring together digital precision and organic irregularity, where fibers carry memory and marks become traces of what once was. Each piece reflects a continuous cycle of becoming, where material holds history beyond its original form. #SalmahAlmansoori #WhoIBecome #MarayaArtCentre #ContemporaryArt #UAEArtists

Artwork highlight | “Tracing What Remains, 2025” On view at Maraya Art Centre as part of @visualsalmah solo exhibition “Who I Become” “Tracing What Remains, 2025” Watercolor on handmade palm paper 120 × 230 cm In this series, Salmah Almansoori explores the layered cultural and ecological memory of Ghayathi. Handmade from locally sourced alfalfa and pond fibers, the paper becomes both material and method, an act of documenting a landscape once shaped by water systems. These fibers, gathered and transformed, function as an archive of place, holding within them traces of a city that has largely remained undocumented. Through mark-making, Salmah works in close dialogue with the material, allowing the fibers to guide rhythm, texture, and form. Rather than imposing an image, the surface determines the outcome, where layers are built, disrupted, and reformed over time. What emerges is not a literal depiction, but a sensory translation of place. Each work holds within it histories of survival, transformation, and ecological presence, becoming a living document rooted in tradition, shaped by modernity, and resisting cultural erasure through the act of making.

Artwork highlight | “Who I Became” On view at Maraya Art Centre as part of @visualsalmah solo exhibition “Who I Become” “Who I Became”, 2023 Photo transfer on found tiles and objects Variable dimensions In this series, Salmah Al Mansoori transforms memory into material. Drawing from fragments of her childhood home, each found object is layered through photo transfer and painting, carrying traces of lived experience. Rather than presenting memory as fixed, the works embrace its partial nature, how we remember in pieces, moments, and impressions rather than complete narratives. Through this process, identity emerges as something fluid and cumulative, shaped by places once inhabited and the emotions they continue to hold. Intimate and deeply personal, the works invite the viewer to look closer, to navigate their own relationship to memory, place, and becoming.

We are proud to present Who I Become at Maraya Art Centre, curated by @cimazzam , marking a significant moment in the practice of @visualsalmah From the outset, her work has carried a striking clarity, defined by focus, direction, and a deep commitment to material and process. Moving fluidly across drawing, papermaking, assemblage, and installation, her practice unfolds as an ongoing investigation into memory, place, and time. Working with handmade papers derived from palm and alfalfa fibers, alongside spices and found materials, Salmah constructs works that act as carriers of both personal and collective histories. These elements do not simply support the work, they shape its rhythm, texture, and meaning. Across the exhibition, memory is not fixed but allowed to remain fluid, layered, and in constant transformation. From early explorations of personal archives to more spatial and sculptural works where absence itself becomes material, her practice continues to expand while remaining deeply rooted in place. Who I Become brings these threads together into an open dialogue, reflecting a practice that embraces becoming as a continuous condition. There is a quiet insistence in her work, a commitment to preserving what might otherwise be overlooked, and to reactivating it through acts of making. We are proud to have supported Salmah’s journey and to witness this important chapter in her evolving practice. Firetti Contemporary

Open now: Déjà Vu at Concrete, Alserkal Avenue. Firetti Contemporary is pleased to participate in “Déjà Vu”, a collective exhibition bringing together 20 of the UAE’s leading contemporary art galleries, conceptualised by @alserkalavenue . 📍 Open daily, 10:00am to 10:00pm at Concrete, @alserkalavenue 📆 On view until 8 May The exhibition explores cycles of repetition, fragmented histories, memory distortions, and slippages in language and meaning. We are pleased to present works by @ahmad.tallaa_ and @maialrstudio Tallaa’s portraits move beyond likeness, inhabiting a space of tension where faces appear and dissolve through layered gestures of erasure and reconstruction. Shaped by psychological and material instability, his works hold a quiet balance between fragility and endurance. Al Remeithi’s practice reimagines the infrastructures of Abu Dhabi and Dubai, transforming road systems into abstract compositions through layering, digital manipulation, and thread. Curated by Kevin Jones (@junipermind ), Director of Strategy at Alserkal, Nada Raza (@nada_raza ), Director of Alserkal Arts Foundation, and Zaina Zaarour (@zinazarour ), Curator and Manager of Programmes at Alserkal Avenue, in consultation with participating galleries. #firetticontemporary #alserkalavenue

Two exhibitions, two distinct practices, unfolding across memory, material, and transformation. “The Sky Forgets, And the Heart Remembers” by Noor Al Suwaidi and “Who I Become” by Salmah Al Mansoori, curated by Cima Azzam, opened at Maraya Art Centre in the presence of Sheikh Nahyan bin Khalifa bin Mohammed bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, Sheikh Mohammed bin Al Thani, H.E. Zaki Nussaiba, H.E. Shatha Al Mulla, and H.E. Ahmed Obaid Al Qaseer, CEO of Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq). معرضان، وممارستان فنّيتان متمايزتان، تتقاطعان عبر الذاكرة والمادة والتحوّل. افتُتح معرضا "تغيب من ذاكرة السماء، وتبقى في قلب لا ينسى" لنوّر السويدي و"من أكون" لسلمى المنصوري، بإشراف القيّمة قيما عزام، في مركز مرايا للفنون، بحضور الشيخ نهيان بن خليفة بن محمد بن حمدان آل نهيان، والشيخ محمد بن آل ثاني، ومعالي زكي نسيبة، وسعادة شذى الملا، وسعادة أحمد عبيد القصير، الرئيس التنفيذي لهيئة الشارقة للاستثمار والتطوير (شروق)

Maraya Art Centre invites you to the opening of “Who I Become” by Emirati artist Salmah Al Mansoori, curated by Cima Azzam. Opening next Sunday, 26 April 2026, at 11:00 am Second Floor, Maraya Art Centre يدعوكم مركز مرايا للفنون لحضور افتتاح معرض “من أكون” للفنانة الإماراتية سلمى المنصوري، بإشراف القيّمة سيما عزام. الافتتاح الأحد القادم، 26 أبريل 2026، الساعة 11:00 صباحاً الطابق الثاني، مركز مرايا للفنون

Ahmad Tallaa grew up in Damascus under the shadow of war. He makes his own paper, crafts his own tools, plays the Ney and the Oud. Everything he touches becomes a way of processing what he has lived through. Swipe to see how that translates onto the canvas.

Ahmad Tallaa Untitled, 2022 Mixed media on canvas 140 cm x 140 cm Ahmad Tallaa’s portraits move away from likeness, focusing instead on the tension within the human face. His figures feel unstable, caught between appearing and disappearing, as if shaped by memory rather than reality. Built through layers of scraping, erasure, and reworking, the surfaces carry a raw, almost weathered quality. There’s a sense of pressure in the way the paint is handled, where forms are pushed, broken, and rebuilt. The faces don’t settle, they shift. This instability reflects a deeper psychological space, shaped by experiences of uncertainty and life under the shadow of conflict. His portraits hold both fragility and endurance, where something persists even as it feels like it’s dissolving. #AHMADTALLAA #SYRIANARTIST #FIRETTICONTEMPORARY