By In Transit, Group Exhibition at Artbooth Gallery, Abu Dhabi
Palestinian artist, Wadeei Khaled was born in a refugee camp in southern West Bank. Now based in Ramallah, the artist draws from his personal and collective narratives, to create art that weaves together stories of belonging, resilience, and displacement. As part of the group exhibition In Transit at Artbooth Gallery, Khaled is showcasing a layered figurative watercolour and ink artwork titled ‘A Message to my Mother’, from the series ‘Diaries of a family in Gaza’. Taking inspiration from his profound connections to his homeland, Khaled’s work centres around stories of his heritage and his lived-in experiences, especially his formative years in the refugee camp.
Tracing evolving artistic narratives, In Transit, presents a cross generational and cross disciplinary dialogue between artists whose practices highlight recurring themes of memory, identity, displacement and visual perception. Besides Khaled the exhibition features works by Ahmad El Badawi, Bahram Hajou, Hanibal Srouji, Jamal Bassiouni, Rania Amoudi, and Yervant Hawarian, and is on view until August 31st 2026.
The intricate narrative of belonging and memory is deeply mirrored in the oil paintings of Rania Amoudi, who is also based in Ramallah. Amoudi focuses her practice on the collective lives of Palestinian women, creating a dialogue that beautifully complements Khaled’s poetic exploration of homeland. While Khaled and Amoudi ground their narratives in the textures of daily life and enduring identity, the exhibition expands into profound reflections on conflict and displacement through fragments from Syrian and Lebanese histories.
The powerful figurative works of internationally recognized Syrian-Kurdish painter Bahram Hajou, probe the psychological depths of solitude and human connection. Lebanese artist Hanibal Srouji, is inspired by his experiences in the Lebanese Civil War. Srouji uses a blowtorch to burn, cut, and puncture his surfaces, turning the canvas into a scarred urban landscape echoing the architectural trauma of Beirut, and balancing a delicate tension between destruction and renewal.
Artists participating in the exhibition also delve into realms of myth, media, and visual structure. The storied city of Alexandria serves as the catalyst for Egyptian artist, Jamal Bassiouni. His canvases blend the echo of ancient coastal myths with the breath of new mornings. Fellow Egyptian visual artist, Ahmad El Badawi too presents layered narratives and abstraction to interrogate boundaries of visual perception.
The intersection of documentary history and fine art comes together in the art practice of Yervant Hawarian, a Lebanese-Syrian-Armenian painter, who began his career at the age of 15, painting monumental affiches for Beirut movie theatres. Chronicling Arab cinema’s Golden Age through bold, graphic figuration and vivid cinematic compositions, Hawarian’s monumental output bridges popular culture and institutional fine art, completing the exhibition’s journey through time, memory, and the transience of human expression.
In Transit positions these artists within a shared space of movement and transformation. It reflects on artistic practice as an ongoing passage between geographies, histories, mediums, and identities, offering audiences an opportunity to encounter diverse yet interconnected visual narratives.