Bahraini artist Hisham Sharif presents his first solo exhibition with Ayyam Gallery and his first solo exhibition in the UAE, Allusive Veil, opening on 23 September 2026 at Ayyam Gallery in Dubai’s Alserkal Avenue.
Running until 30 October, the exhibition brings together Sharif’s recent paintings, exploring intimacy, desire, memory and the tensions between personal freedom and the expectations of a conservative society. Rather than confronting these subjects directly, Sharif approaches them through suggestion, atmosphere and fragments of everyday life.
Influenced by 19th-century French painting, Sharif has developed a visual language that feels deliberately removed from the artistic traditions surrounding him. Yet this distance allows his paintings to examine his environment with particular sensitivity. Interiors become spaces of privacy and intimacy, where expressive fields of colour and gestural brushwork transform personal experiences into scenes that are simultaneously familiar and elusive.
His paintings often exist somewhere between memory and imagination. Shadows, undefined figures, reflective surfaces and ghostly presences create a sense of uncertainty, leaving the viewer questioning what is real and what might be remembered, imagined or concealed. The recurring presence of mirrors further reinforces this tension, acting as symbols of the unstable boundary between reality and illusion.
Colour plays a central role in Sharif’s compositions. Rather than simply supporting the human figures or objects depicted, areas of colour frequently become the focus of the painting itself. His rich brushstrokes build a visual tension that reflects the contradictions at the heart of his work: eroticism and tradition, reality and fantasy, revelation and concealment.
The intimate interior scenes gradually expand into exterior landscapes and depictions of the animal kingdom, bringing another layer of meaning to the exhibition. Drawing on Persian mythology and his own Persian ancestry, Sharif uses animals to reflect human behaviour, social expectations and structures of power. The recurring figures of the cheetah and gazelle suggest the relationship between predator and prey while evoking ideas of masculinity and femininity.
At the centre of Allusive Veil is a deeply personal reflection on growing up, relationships, longing and loneliness. Sharif’s scenes are autobiographical without becoming straightforward narratives. Instead, they function as emotional fragments—moments suspended between what has happened, what is happening and what might have been.
Born in Bahrain in 1993, Sharif was initially trained in finance before turning to painting. This background contributes a sense of structure to a practice otherwise driven by intuition and emotion. His surfaces are built through layered washes, scraped textures and shifts in tone, producing paintings that can evoke seascapes, architectural ruins or intimate spaces without settling into a single interpretation.
His recent work embraces ambiguity even further, drawing on ritual, heritage and mythology while questioning what it means to feel connected to a place. Rooted in Bahrain and informed by his Persian heritage, Sharif’s practice moves between the personal and the collective, creating paintings that speak to experiences of memory, belonging and dislocation.
Sharif’s first solo exhibition, Frightening the Dark, was presented in 2017, followed by Sharif & Sharif in 2022. He has received the Al Dana Award at the 50th Bahrain Annual Fine Arts Exhibition and a Recognition Award for Outstanding Work at its 45th edition. His practice has also taken him to residencies in New York and Bahrain, while his work is held in the permanent collection of the Bahrain National Museum.
With Allusive Veil, Sharif brings together the recurring tensions that have shaped his practice in recent years. His paintings do not offer clear resolutions; instead, they invite viewers into spaces where desire, memory, tradition and imagination overlap. Behind the veil, what remains is deliberately uncertain—and that uncertainty becomes the work’s most compelling quality.
Exhibition: Allusive Veil by Hisham Sharif
Dates: 23 September–30 October 2026
Opening: 23 September, 6–9 PM, with the artist present
Location: Ayyam Gallery, B11, Alserkal Avenue, Street 8, Al Quoz 1, Dubai
