At Art Mumbai, UAE galleries reflect on historic and contemporary ties between India and the Gulf

Nujoom Alghanem’s Voyage has the uncanny effect of feeling both tempestuous and serene, like looking at a boat on a misty dawn or, conversely, on a cloudless day.

A lot of this is due to the painting’s grit and texture: the dabs and creases of black paint that have been superimposed on the abstracted seascape, the boat with its sailors. Without the black paint, the scene would have plunged into indecipherable abstraction.

It wouldn’t have been a bad painting – if anything, the white figures would have evoked a textual quality – but it would have been a completely different work. The painting would have lost its delightful climatic ambiguity. It would no longer have been a seascape.

Show caption: Nujoom Alghanem, Voyage, 2010, acrylic on canvas. Photo: Art…

At Art Mumbai, Abu Dhabi’s Rizq Art Gallery is highlighting the painting’s maritime imagery. Voyage is one of several works by Alghanem that draw on the UAE’s seafaring traditions.

In Mumbai, this aspect also comes to allude to the city’s historic position as a trading hub between India and the Gulf region.

“I had a theme in mind: Mumbai as a trade conduit between India and the Gulf,” says Shafeena Yusuff Ali, founder and executive director of the Rizq Art Initiative and its gallery. “All the artists we worked with [in the show] always thought about this idea.”

Rizq Art Gallery is showing works by three other Emirati artists. Reem Al Mubarak is presenting a sculptural work that makes use of teak – the preferred timber of dhow ships. The work is carved with a poem her great-grandfather wrote to a hakim, whom he had crossed the sea to visit in India seeking treatment.

Show caption: The Sea was Never Empty I, by Reem Al Mubarak, 2026. Photo: …

Ruqqaya Al Hashmi’s Points of Contact utilises henna, pointing to the shared heritage of the two regions. Najat Makki, meanwhile, is showing works that exhibit how she draws formal inspiration from the seafaring traditions of the UAE.

Their works are being shown alongside those by Indian artists. Abdullah PA is presenting Cabinet of Drifting Histories, a series of columns that rise for more than two metres. The columns are studded with shells, keys, blades and hinges – references to the hardware seen in seaports.

Amjum Rizve, meanwhile, is showing beaded pieces that look at old and new ports in India. Mibin Bhaskar and Bhartti Verma are also looking at similar connective threads in works that teeter towards the surreal.

While the Rizq Art Gallery is marking its debut at Art Mumbai, a number of galleries from the UAE are also returning to the fair, now in its fourth year and running at Mahalaxmi Racecourse until Sunday.

These include Gallery Isabelle. The Dubai gallery is returning after last year’s debut with an expanded presentation of Mohammed Kazem’s works. These include a new painting titled Weekend that shows a group of migrant workers in the UAE in their shared accommodations, playing cards and napping.

The gallery is also showing works by Baghdad-born artist Bassim Al Shaker and Iranian artist Fereydoun Ave. Both artists use floral forms as departure points for their paintings, but where Al Shaker capers towards the abstract, Ave renders domineering, even menacing figures from irises.

Show caption: Iris by Fereydoun Ave, 1990. Photo: Gallery Isabelle

Ahmedabad-born artist Richi Bhatia, who lives in the UAE, is also on the roster, showing a series of drawings as well as ceramic works. “Presenting her work in her home country carries a particular significance,” says Jad Karam, director of Gallery Isabelle. “It is an opportunity to reconnect her practice with a local audience while expanding its visibility.”

There is a thread, Karam notes, between Kazem’s “intimate depictions of workers resting in their makeshift bedrooms” and Bhatia’s ceramic plates, “which bring together uncanny assemblages of processed food and organic forms to question consumption, labour, and the movement and trade of meat across borders.

“Her work considers meat as an object of transnational inquiry, tracing the labour and systems of exchange behind its production and circulation, and exploring how cultural encounters and exchanges ultimately find their way into our plates.”

Karam says the gallery’s participation at last year’s fair was encouraging, and much of the selection during this run was inspired by that engagement.

“Mumbai has a particularly vibrant and thriving artistic scene,” he says. “Last year, we had some very engaging exchanges with Indian collectors, who struck us as curious, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic. They take the time to research, ask thoughtful questions and engage with the artists’ practices beyond the works themselves. Our presentation builds on those conversations, while introducing new artistic voices.”

Show caption: Amjum Rizve's Port of Relics, 2026, beads on canvas. Photo: …

Another returning participant is 1x1 Art Gallery, which has been participating at the fair every year since its inauguration in 2023. The gallery is presenting an eclectic mix of works.

Aygul Sarsen is showing a series of feverish figurative paintings that draw from the stories and traditions of her native Karakalpakstan. Similarly, the works of Rina Banerjee depict surreal figurative scenes. Chittrovanu Mazumdar and Shanti Dave present fiery landscapes. Gabriel Sobin casts feathers in beeswax, whereas Himmat Shah presents wonderful bronze sculptures in shapes that test perceptions of the material.

Finally, Sharmila Samant, Shobha Broota, Sohan Qadri and Jagannath Panda layer, twist and line geometric forms in compositions that utilise everything from glue and wool to inks and dyes.