Wander and Discover: Art Week Riyadh

At the inaugural edition of Art Week Riyadh, I find myself surrounded by works from both established artists and emerging talents across Saudi Arabia and the greater MENA region — each contributing to a collective endeavour to redefine and shape their identities.

Sense of Wander: ★★★★★

Guests and visitors gathered at the opening evening of Art Week Riyadh 2025.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — For many, the first images that come to mind when thinking of Saudi Arabia are the sacred Kaaba, women cloaked in black niqabs, and the resilient palm trees standing tall in the heat. These are the symbols that have long defined the Kingdom’s identity. Rarely — if ever — does the thought of contemporary art cross their minds. For the longest time, this was true for me too. But that changed completely during my recent trip to Riyadh.

Perhaps it was fate. I happened to be in Riyadh for just a few days and — as if I had it all planned out — those very days coincided with Art Week Riyadh 2025. Though I was aware of this art event a few days prior to my trip, I couldn’t find much information about it online, so I left it at the back of my mind.

One the day of the event’s opening, I was visiting Diriyah — not far from the JAX Art District where Art Week Riyadh was taking place. A chance encounter brought me right to the heart of this creative feast, giving me insight into the artistic energy now brewing within the kingdom and the greater MENA region.

Ahmed Mater’s Hulm (Dream) seems to capture the essence of the creative journey undertaken by artists in Saudi Arabia.

Miramar Al Nayyar’s series, The Language of Movement and the Movement of Language, blurs the boundaries between scripts, symbols, and abstraction — inviting viewers to reflect on their similarities and differences.

This year’s theme, “At the Edge,” brings together a curated selection of works from 45 local, regional, and international galleries, exploring the dialogues between Saudi Arabia, the broader MENA region, and the global contemporary art scene. While this may sound like a typical art week, my experience told a different story.

As soon as I set food into the main exhibition, my attention was caught by a series of calligraphy work by Ahmed Mater, a leading Saudi artist known for his poignant commentary on the Kingdom’s evolution. Here, he used the playful red plastic caps of toy guns — a nostalgic object for Saudi youth — to spell out words like hulm (dream), hurriya (freedom), and salam (peace). The simplicity of the materials contrasted with the profound weight of these words.

Next to Mater’s bold statements, Lulwah Al Homoud’s geometric calligraphy series, The Language of Existence, offered a quieter yet mesmerizing presence. Inspired by Islamic art and geometry, her works reimagined Arabic script as intricate mathematical designs, drawing viewers in to explore the delicate, almost coded patterns that recall the foundations of what makes us human.

Lulwah Al Homoud’s geometry-inspired series The Language of Existence mesmerises visitors at Art Week Riyadh 2025.

Portrait of Imam Hussein Zaino by Saudi photographer Adel Al Quraishi.

In Behind the Shadows; Experimenting, Saudi artist Joud Fahmy gave birth to a silhouette of a figure curled in a fetal position, seemingly absorbed in its own emotions.

The artworks on display ranged from paintings and photography to textiles, ceramics, and mixed-media installations. Despite their diversity, the exhibition’s layout brilliantly connected these varied pieces, offering a sense of unity without compromising their individuality. And instead of feeling like I was hopping from one gallery to another, it felt more like wandering in an exhibition with curated narrative.

Unlike traditional art fairs, where works compete for buyers’ attention, I was surprised to find that many galleries featured only one or two artists, transforming each booth into something akin to a solo exhibition.

One of my most unexpected encounters was with the portrait series by Adel Al Quraishi. His solo exhibition, The Guardians, first caught my eye at London’s Leighton House Museum in 2015. Here, once again, I stood face-to-face with the intense gazes of the Guardians — the keepers of the Prophet’s Mosque, a tradition going back over 800 years. Their expressions seemed to overflow with emotions and stories, speaking to me even in their silence.

Raeda Ashour’s work was another revelation. Through delicate embossing of Islamic motifs and mosque silhouettes on paper, accentuated with hints of gold and silver, she transformed sacred patterns into minimalist compositions. The understated beauty of her creations invited me to look closer through the eyes of a jeweller, while I attempt to uncover the subtle details that made them special.

By embossing Islam’s holy sites on paper, Raeda Ashour creates works of understated beauty — both inviting and elegantly refined.

The Historic Diriyah Materials Lab showcases materials like mud bricks, gypsum, and limestone — once the foundational elements of private and communal spaces in Diriyah.

The final section of the exhibition was dedicated to the Materials Lab at Diriyah, which showcased an impressive array of local materials used in the region’s architecture.

Diriyah, the place where Art Week Riyadh was hosted, is also the birthplace of Saudi Arabia. As a viewer, I couldn’t help but feel a deep connection to this chapter of the Kingdom’s history, especially since I had just visited At-Turaif that morning.

The materials on display — mud bricks, limestone, and gypsum — were not just substances; they were the building blocks that shaped the region’s living spaces and, ultimately, its culture. What was even more fascinating was that many of these materials continue to inspire and be adopted by contemporary artists in their creative expressions.

What makes Art Week Riyadh special is that it brought JAX Art District to life, where visitors could explore open studios, see artists at work, and discover curated exhibitions by renowned institutions like ATHR and Hafez Gallery. Meanwhile, the Al Mousa Centre offers another window into the Kingdom’s contemporary art scene.

During Art Week Riyadh, visitors are invited to explore JAX Art District — an active hub of contemporary art in the kingdom.

The various talks hosted by Art Week Riyadh provide a great opportunity for the public to gain insight into the development of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art scene — past, present, and future.

The Al Mousa Centre is a hidden gem in the heart of Riyadh, just across from the King Fahad National Library. Once a commercial complex in the 1980s, this building has since been transformed into a hub for contemporary art, now housing 20 diverse galleries.

On the occasion of Art Week Riyadh, galleries at the Al Mousa Centre curated special solo and group exhibitions, where works by both pioneering Saudi artists and emerging talents from the region came together, breathing life into this retro-style building with a creative pulse.

While wandering through these spaces, I found myself wondering: what are the characteristics that define Saudi art? In a world where contemporary art is often swept up by Western trends, is there an art form that can be distinctly called “Saudi”? And if so, how does it differ from “Arab” art?

While searching for my answers, I stumbled upon works by Saudi artists, such as Abdullah Al Tamami (عبدالله التمامي), Abdelwahab Otaif (عبدالوهاب عطيف), and Fahad Ghorman (فهد غرمان).

In particular, Fahad Ghorman’s canvases caught me off guard. His Kingdom Mural (translated from the Arabic title Jadaria Al Mamluka) transformed bold, abstract calligraphic strokes into a fantastical landscape, capturing a spirit that felt undeniably Saudi — even if I couldn’t quite put my finger on why.

In these canvases, Saud Al Qahtani breathes color and life into the timeless art of calligraphy, offering a contemporary experience in appreciating this tradition

This piece by Abdullah Al-Tamami captures the landscapes of Saudi Arabia with bold colours and strokes, its dynamism echoing the rapidly changing urban landscape of the kingdom.

Fahad Ghorman ingeniously crafts a fantastical landscape of the kingdom using bold, abstract calligraphic strokes.

Abdelwahab Otaif infuses a contemporary spirit into the traditional Saudi craft of palm weaving.

While I’m no expert on Saudi Arabia’s art history and am still navigating the stages at which Saudi artists have reached in their pursuit of a distinct identity, my curiosity has been growing. My visit to Art Week Riyadh also sparked a desire to dive deeper into the Kingdom’s arts and culture, leading me to pick up Art in Saudi Arabia: A New Creative Economy?

That’s when I learned about Shatta — an artistic movement introduced at the Al Meftaha Arts Village in 2002. It called for a departure from practices rooted in Western modernism, urging artists to create works that reflected their own identities. This challenge to develop something uniquely Saudi struck a chord with the questions I had in mind. Did they succeed? I’ll have to keep reading to find out.

While artists carve out their own paths, the Saudi government has also been driving a transformation to develop the nation’s soft power. Since the launch of Vision 2030 by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2016, the country’s arts and cultural landscape has expanded at an unprecedented pace.

In 2020, the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale set a promising precedent. But it wasn’t until 2021 that the Kingdom’s cultural renaissance gained momentum, with the Ministry of Culture launching over 100 cultural initiatives and events. Since then, Saudi Arabia has witnessed a surge of biennales and festivals — from Noor Riyadh in 2021 to the AlUla Arts Festival in 2022 and the groundbreaking Islamic Arts Biennale in 2023. These events, together with the inaugural edition of Art Week Riyadh this year, reaffirm Saudi Arabia’s commitment to becoming a hub for arts and culture.

Gallery openings at Al Mousa Centre during Art Week Riyadh 2025 provide a window into the kingdom’s contemporary art scene.

The overarching theme of the inaugural Art Week Riyadh is “At the Edge.” While it could be interpreted as reaching the boundary or limit of something, I see it as a representation of the Kingdom’s ongoing transition. Riyadh, I’ve heard, is evolving so fast that some say it looks different every day.

“At the Edge” evokes the liminal space that Saudi Arabia is currently navigating — as it crosses the threshold between past artistic practices and future potentials. Strangely enough, this theme seems to echo the one at this year’s Islamic Arts Biennale: “And All That Is In Between,” though the latter is derived from a verse in the Quran.

I’m not sure when my next visit to Saudi Arabia will be, but one thing is for sure — I’ll be on the lookout for the blossoming of its arts and culture. In the meantime, I hope the world will become more open to discovering and being inspired by the incredible art coming out of Saudi Arabia and beyond, inshallah.

Reference:
Proctor, R. A., & Al-Senussi, A. (2024). Art in Saudi Arabia: A New Creative Economy? Lund Humphries.

Art Week Riyadh 2025 took place from April 6-13, 2025.