Iris Projects: The arts agency aiming to discover new talent in UAE and Gulf

Institution founder aims to reflect multicultural nature of region while also highlighting unexplored local history

Iris Projects founder Maryam Al Falasi says the arts agency is keen on discovering new talents in the Gulf. Antonie Robertson / The National

Iris Projects is one of the country’s newest arts institutions, and its focus is exclusively on artists from the UAE and the wider Gulf region.

Its inaugural show takes place at its new gallery space in Abu Dhabi’s MiZa. The exhibition underscores the art institution’s mission by showcasing rising local talents who use unlikely materials to create sprawling and evocative works.

Running until January 20, In The Breath Of Decay is Alyazia Al Nahyan's first solo exhibition. The Emirati artist draws her inspiration, subject and materials from local landscapes.

Her paintings are produced by using imprints and dyes from fruits, plants and other found matter. Instead of canvas, other fabrics form the material foundation of her works. The fabrics are dyed with a pigment she derives from the leaves of neem trees. She often reuses materials, blurring their imprints to create abstract landscapes ripe with movement and drama.

The body of work being presented at Iris Projects reveal an artist with a honed vision, a surprising characteristic given that Al Nahyan is only on the verge from graduating from her bachelor’s programme at Zayed University.

Maryam Al Falasi, founder of Iris Projects, felt drawn to Al Nahyan’s works since she first saw them in an online post. She knew immediately that Al Nahyan offered something unique.

“I usually go to graduation shows of art schools here in the UAE,” she says. “Because I go every year, I build relationships with these students, with these professors. I saw one of the students posting her painting. I saw it on my screen and knew this was the next artist.”

Within half an hour, she had gone to see the works in person. “There's two types of artists at this young age,” she says. “You see some potential and you’re like ‘OK, let’s bring in the right mentors and put them in that direction’, which usually happens in residencies. But then there are some artists, you see their art and you know it’s something special.”

Al Falasi says she was keen on pairing Al Nahyan with a curator who would highlight the poetry in her works. She found a match in Nadine Khalil, who she describes as “an amazing curator”.

“I have never seen someone who works like this with an artist,” explains Al Falasi. “She has the experience and knowledge. I believe you have to have a mentor. Why not give that opportunity to artists so that they can learn more, and learn more about themselves. Having someone reflect that perspective, it's very important and it makes the artist more confident in their works.”

In The Breath of Decay is a bit of a mission statement for Iris Projects, in that it represents the gallery’s ambition to uncover new talents in the Gulf. The institution recently announced that it will be representing another emerging artist, Roudhah Al Mazrouei, whose work spans paintings, sculpture, film and public installations.

At Dubai Design Week, Al Mazrouei recently exhibited Tbaba, an installation she developed with Filipino architect Gerald Jason Cruz that paid tribute to the region’s pearl diving tradition. At Sikka earlier this year, she presented Reverie, an installation that rendered traditional Emirati jewellery in large-scale form, letting viewers appreciate the intricacies of goldsmithing techniques and motifs.

Iris Projects also represents Juma Al Haj, whose large-scale paintings explore themes of belonging through deconstructed language that is rendered with lithe and lilting dynamism against bold hues. The arts agency presented the works of Al Haj and Al Nahyan at its booth at Abu Dhabi Art, taking the opportunity of the art event to commemorate its launch.

Al Falasi hopes the Iris Projects roster will continue to grow, seeking to reflect the multicultural nature of the UAE and the wider Gulf region.

“We're a cosmopolitan region,” she says. “It's a very diverse community, and it's interesting to see that in art, how people translate things differently.”

Al Falasi is constantly on the lookout for new talent, whether in local student exhibitions or online. “With social media, you see art all the time,” she says. “You see young artists and also establish artists that are not represented but are promoting themselves.”

As much as Al Falasi is intent on discovering new talents, she says she also hopes Iris Projects can uncover and highlight unexplored pockets of local history.

“Iris Projects is a visual arts and cultural agency,” she explains. “We have a gallery space. We have a programme where we represent regional artists and bring them the best curators. With the cultural agency I’m trying to put together an archive.”

The starting point for this archive, she notes, is a collection of photographs and documents that belonged to her grandfather, Butti Bin Bishr. “He passed away when I was 13,” she says. “I started missing him, and opened the cabinets in his library, when I saw those photos and documents.”

Though she was close to her grandfather, Al Falasi says she never quite thought of him as a historical figure until she witnessed those photographs, which featured many of the UAEs leaders, including Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the country’s Founding Father.

A 1968 photograph, for instance, which Al Falasi posted on her Instagram, shows Sheikh Zayed during a hunting expedition in the Scottish Highlands. Another, dated 1973, shows her grandfather with Sheikh Zayed on a flight. The photographs go as far back as the 1940s, providing a unique lens to the region’s history.

“I saw their importance, so I started gathering them, documenting them,” she says. “They also included important documents about our city, such as plans for the landscaping of the road between Dubai and Abu Dhabi.”

Al Falasi adds that she envisions the two aspects of Iris Projects, focusing on the future and the past, to merge within its initiatives and programmes.

“I can see it growing to have a warehouse, with a gallery space, but also at a research centre for in archives,” she says.