Lawrie Shabibi at Abu Dhabi Art 2013

Meekyoung Shin is a London based Korean artist known for her soap sculptures based on familiar historical and classical objects: ceramics from China, Ming Vases, classical Greek sculpture and the antiquities. Her sculptures question traditional notions of fragility and beauty and serve as a commentary on the collision of cultures and appropriated cultural identity. Shin’s debut at Abu Dhabi Art Fair features vases from her Ghost Series: a group of colourful renditions of Chinese vases made from soap and based on real Chinese Antiquities.

In conjunction with these objects a work from Nahas’s Galactic series of paintings is also presented. These three-dimensional richly coloured paintings comprised of sinuous lines and fluid forms suggest interactions between celestial bodies or amoebic life forms. Alongside the works of Nahas and Shin the paintings of Egyptian artist Farghali Abdel Hafiz and Driss Ouadahi are also showcased as well as some photographic works from Larissa Sansour’s acclaimed Nation Estate series.

Lawrie Shabibi at Abu-Dhabi Art 2013, Installation view / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Lawrie Shabibi at Abu-Dhabi Art 2013, Installation view / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Lawrie Shabibi at Abu-Dhabi Art 2013, Installation view / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Lawrie Shabibi at Abu-Dhabi Art 2013, Installation view / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi

Nabil Nahas

Nabil Nahas (b.1949) completed a BFA from Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge in 1971 and then an MFA from Yale University in 1973. Nahas has exhibited regularly at important New York galleries, including Robert Miller, Holly Solomon and Sperone Westwater, in Galerie Tanit in Hamburg and Agial Gallery in Beirut. He has also partipiated in the XXV Sao Paulo Biennale and Glasstress (collateral event of the 54th Venice Biennale). His museum shows include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Katzen Centre, and the American University Art Museum. His works can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Vorhees Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and the Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, the Flint Institute of Art, Michigan, the Michigan Museum of Art UMMA and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art.

Nahas / Galactic series / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist

Meekyoung Shin

Meekyoung Shin (b.1967) is a graduate of Seoul National University and Slade School of Fine Art. Solo exhibitions include National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul (2013), Written in Soap: A Plinth Project, Cavendish Square, London (2012), MOT Gallery, Taipei (2012), Translation, Haunch of Venison, London (2011), Kukje Gallery, Seoul (2009), Lefebvre & Fils Gallery, Paris (2009), Museum of Art, Seoul National University, Seoul (2008), Moon Jar, Korean Gallery, British Museum, London (2007), Tokyo Humanité Gallery, Tokyo (2002) and Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2002). Group shows include Glasstress, (collateral event of the 55th Venice Biennale), Venice (2013), Couriers of Taste, Danson House, Kent (2013), Toilet Works, various venues including IKON Gallery (Birmingham), Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Edinburgh) and Yorkshire Sculpture Park (all 2013), The Fabricated Object, Sumarria Lunn Gallery, London (2012-13), Korean Eye, Saatchi Gallery, London (2012), Synopticon-Contemporary Chinoiserie, Plymouth Museum/Saltram House (2012), Material Matter, East Wing X, Courtauld Institute, London (2012), As Small As a World and Large as Alone, Gallery Hyundai, Seoul (2012), Recasting the Gods, Sumarria Lunn Gallery, London (2012), Material and Energy; Korean Eye, Museum of Art and Design, New York (2011), Poetry of Clay: Korean Buncheong Ceramics from Leeum, Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco (2011), TRA: Edge of Becoming, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice (2011), 38°N Snow South, Charlotte Lund Gallery, Stockholm (2011), Memories from the Past, LEEUM, Samsung Museum of Art, Seoul (2010), The Alchemists, Edel Assanti, London (2010), Art & Synesthesia, Seoul City Museum, Seoul (2009), Art n Play, Hangaram Mueum, Seoul (2008), Nanging Triennale, Nanging (2008), Meme Trackers, Song Zhuang Art Center, Beijing (2008), Particules Libres, nouvelle génération d'artistes Coréens en Europe, Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2007), Telltale, Museum of Ewah University, Seoul (2005), Gwangju Biennale-Korea Express, Gwangju (2004), Chemical Art, Gallery Sagan, Seoul (2003), Alchemy, Sungkok Art Museum, Seoul (2001) and Soft Outside/Solid Inside-Softness Crossing Over Solidness, POSCO Art Museum, Seoul (2001).

Meekyoung Shin / Ghost series / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist

Farghali Abdel Hafiz

Farghali Abdel Hafiz (b. 1941) is one of Egypt's most established artists, with a career spanning six decades and several continents. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, he represented Egypt in several biennials, including Sao Paolo in 1985, Venice in 1972, 1987 and 1993, and China in 2002. He was a founder of the Axis Group in 1981, one of the most influential art movements in Egypt in the Post-Modern period. He has held over twenty international exhibitions in Europe and the United States.

Farghali Abdel Hafiz / Egyptian Spirituality, 2012 / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist

Larissa Sansour

Larissa Sansour (b. 1973) was born in Jerusalem and studied fine art in Copenhagen. Her most recent solo exhibitions are Space Faction, Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai (2103) Nation Estate at Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris (2012), Living the Highlife, Centre of Photography, Coppenhagen (2012), and Falafel Road, Depo, Istanbul (2011). She has participated in the Liverpool Biennale (2010), Istanbul Biennale (2009), Third Guangzhou Triennial in China (2008) and LOOP, Seoul (2010). She has exhibited in a variety of international museums and institutions most notably the Centre for Photography, Copenhagen (2012), Cornerhouse, Manchester (2012), Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark (2011), Hiroshima MOCA, Japan (2011), Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde, Denmark (2010), Iniva, London (2010), Al Ma'mal, Jerusalem (2007) and Tate Modern, London, 2007. Her works are part of notable collections including the Carlsberg Foundation, Denmark, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, N.B.K., Germany, Nadour, Germany and the Barjeel Foundation, UAE. Sansour currently lives and works between London and Copenhagen.

Larissa Sansour / Nation State - Meditereanean / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist

Driss Ouadahi

Driss Ouadahi (b. 1959, Casablanca, Morocco) is a contemporary Algerian painter and architect who works and lives in Düsseldorf, Germany. Ouadahi's work features abstracted architectural forms found in real Algerian housing structures.

Driss Ouadahi / De Bloc A Bloque, 2011, 190x240 cm / Courtesy of Lawrie Shabibi and the Artist

Lawrie Shabibi

Founded in March 2011, Lawrie Shabibi is a contemporary art gallery housed in a 3000 square foot warehouse in Dubai's Alserkal Avenue in Al Quoz industrial district. The gallery's mission is to promote the works of relevant and innovative contemporary artists from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. More information on Lawrie Shabibi