Galleries and institutions in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah continue to present a range of exhibitions.Current highlights include A Board Game Adventure at Louvre Abu Dhabi, an exhibition that traces the journey of games including chess, Mancala, Ludo and Carrom as they travelled between ancient civilisations and evolved into those still played today; Precarious Beings at Tashkeel, Hamad Al Muzaini’s first solo exhibition, which examines how people adapt to cities and the everyday behaviours that shape urban spaces; and Body Quotidian at Sharjah Art Foundation, which places recent works by Laila Majid and Inaam Zafar in dialogue.Together, the exhibitions reflect a wide range of practices across the country, from photography and works on paper to sculpture, design, craft and painting.Here are nine exhibitions to see across the UAE.1. In Plain Sight at Gallery Isabelle Alia Zaal’s latest solo exhibition offers an intimate exploration of the UAE landscape through paintings, works on paper and ceramic pieces that focus on fragments rather than sweeping vistas. Drawing inspiration from locations including Al Khawaneej in Dubai and the mangroves and mudflats of Abu Dhabi, the artist turns her attention to details of familiar trees and plants, creating works shaped as much by memory as by observation.Rather than treating the landscape as a fixed subject, Zaal examines how it is perceived, remembered and reconstructed. Many of the paintings begin as smartphone photographs before being digitally altered through cropping, zooming and distortion. These interventions become part of the final work, reflecting the artist’s interest in how vision is shaped by context, technology and personal experience.The exhibition is informed by the ideas of the 11th-century scholar Ibn Al Haytham, whose pioneering work on optics argued that sight is an active process influenced by memory and interpretation. Zaal extends these ideas through paintings that suggest the landscape is never entirely objective, but constantly transformed by the viewer’s perspective and lived experience.Personal history also plays a role. Inspired in part by her father's difficulty in distinguishing certain colours, the exhibition approaches vision as something individual and incomplete rather than universal. Through close-up views of ghaf trees, mangroves and other familiar environments, In Plain Sight presents the Gulf landscape as a space of memory, perception and emotional connection.Until September 15; Dubai2. In Abstracto, In Concreto: On Memory and Presence at Efie GalleryThe paintings prompt visitors to think about the different ways in which the human body contains history, inheritance and imagination. Photo: Efie GalleryShow caption: The paintings prompt visitors to think about the different w…In Abstracto, In Concreto: On Memory and Presence brings together four artists of African descent whose works move between figuration and abstraction to explore identity, memory and diasporic experience.Curated by Brice Arsene Yonkeu, the exhibition features Luke Agada, Ludovic Nkoth, Naila Opiangah and Tunji Adeniyi-Jones. Across painting and charcoal drawing, the artists use the human body as a site where personal histories, cultural inheritance and imagination intersect.Agada’s fluid compositions draw on the idea of the “third space”, presenting identity as something hybrid and unstable. Nkoth uses ambiguous settings and obscured expressions to create scenes shaped by the viewer’s own experiences, while Opiangah reduces figures to faceless silhouettes that assemble into architectural forms. Adeniyi-Jones draws from Yoruba mythology and culture, using vivid palettes and figures that gradually emerge from fields of colour and pattern.Together, the works challenge straightforward readings of figurative painting and consider how abstraction can reveal the complexity of bodies shaped by movement, belonging and life across cultures.Until September 17; Dubai3. Tangerine Dreams at Ayyam GalleryTangerine Dreams at Ayyam Gallery explores how a single hue can evoke contrasting associations. Photo: Ayyam GalleryShow caption: Tangerine Dreams at Ayyam Gallery explores how a single hue …Tangerine Dreams brings together artists from different generations around the simple subject of the colour orange. The group exhibition explores how a single hue can evoke contrasting associations, moving between warmth and intensity, celebration and nostalgia.Works by artists including Sama Alshaibi, Abdalla Al Omari, Tammam Azzam, Thaier Helal, Leila Nseir, Faisal Samra, Khaled Takreti and Kais Salman use orange as a starting point to explore memory, landscape, identity and transformation. Across painting, photography and mixed media, the colour shifts between references to sunlight, fire, fruit and changing horizons.The exhibition is accompanied by Irish poet Roisin Kelly's Oranges, which uses the act of selecting fruit as a metaphor for intimacy and desire. Its inclusion extends the show's exploration of colour beyond the visual, connecting orange with touch, scent, instinct and memory.Until September 18; Dubai4. Body Quotidian at Sharjah Art FoundationBody Quotidian brings together recent works by Laila Majid and Inaam Zafar in an exhibition exploring the human body through metaphor, material and everyday experience.Curated by Raja’a Khalid, assistant curator at Sharjah Art Foundation, the exhibition places Majid and Zafar’s sculptures, photographs and paintings in dialogue with one another. While their practices differ, both artists approach the body indirectly, through surfaces, silhouettes, domestic spaces and the materials that suggest flesh, heat, touch and presence.The exhibition considers how bodies are perceived, altered and contained, particularly as technology continues to reshape ideas of youth, beauty and truth. Across the works, the body often appears in partial or suggested form, moving between intimacy, play, desire and mortality. Until September 20; Sharjah5. Vantage Point 13 at Sharjah Art FoundationIn her Escaramuzas series for Vantage Point 13, Brazilian photographer Luisa Dorr focuses on an equestrian team and school in Mexico that trains female horse riders. Photo: Luisa DorrShow caption: In her Escaramuzas series for Vantage Point 13, Brazilian ph…Vantage Point 13 marks a new chapter for Sharjah Art Foundation's long-running photography platform as it moves into the institution's dedicated photography gallery. Selected through an international open call, six artists present newly commissioned photographic series developed with the foundation's curatorial and production support. The exhibition features work by Adam Rouhana, Guanyu Xu, Latifa AlBokhari, Luisa Dorr, Maheder Haileselassie and Sathish Kumar. Together, their projects demonstrate the breadth of contemporary lens-based practice, reflecting the programme's evolution from a platform for UAE-based photographers into an international exhibition embracing diverse approaches to photography. Introduced in 2013, Vantage Point has become one of the UAE's key photography initiatives. This edition also reflects the foundation's expanded commitment to supporting new work, with participating artists receiving production funding to create original projects specifically for the exhibition. Until November 29; Sharjah6. Precarious Beings at TashkeelHamad Al Muzaini’s first solo exhibition examines the ways people adapt to cities and the everyday behaviours that quietly shape the places they call home. Presented at Tashkeel Nad Al Sheba, the exhibition grew from Al Muzaini’s participation in Tashkeel’s Critical Practice Programme, which supports artists through research, mentorship and the development of new work.Trained as an architect, the Kuwaiti artist has gradually shifted his focus from designing places to questioning how and why they take shape. His practice considers the built environment through seemingly mundane details, asking what improvised interventions and habits can reveal about the people navigating urban spaces.Working across photography, drawing and sculpture, Al Muzaini explores how negotiating, circumventing and inhabiting a city can become so routine that these behaviours eventually escape notice. The exhibition uses these observations to raise wider questions about urban planning, territoriality and whether cities adequately respond to the needs of their inhabitants.Until October 11; Dubai7. Unseen Script at Rizq Art InitiativeNujoom Alghanem’s paintings are part of a wider practice that also spans film, poetry, ceramics, cement, resin and digital art. Antonie Robertson / The NationalShow caption: Nujoom Alghanem’s paintings are part of a wider practice tha…Unseen Script brings together 10 artists to explore the routines, memories and observations that quietly shape everyday life. Curated by Meena Vari, the exhibition looks at the patterns people form through repetition, from familiar journeys and domestic objects to changing landscapes and gestures that become so ingrained they often go unnoticed.The exhibition includes works by Najat Makki, Nujoom Alghanem, Nasir Nasrallah, Abdulla P A, Ana Escobar Saavedra, Fadi Balhawan, Ismail Al Rifai, Joanna Barakat, Neveen Abu Samra and Simrin Mehra Agarwal. Across painting, sculpture, assemblage and mixed media, the artists return to recurring subjects within their practices, revealing how personal habits and ways of seeing become a kind of visual script.Several works draw on the relationship between people and their surroundings. Abdulla reflects on abandoned homes and the ways nature reclaims human-made spaces, while Saavedra transforms collected seashells into delicate assemblages. Elsewhere, Nasrallah draws on memories of his grandfather’s antique shop, Makki extends her abstract practice into steel, and Alghanem examines the cityscape as a contemporary horizon.While the exhibition touches on the way technology can identify and predict human patterns, its focus remains on subjective experience, asking what memory, consciousness and observation can reveal that data cannot.Until October 28; Abu Dhabi8. The Sky Held It, The Earth Remembered at Ishara Art FoundationThe exhibition brings together works by Shahana Rajani, Rohini Devasher and Sarker Protick to explore how land, water and the cosmos can act as archives of memory and history. Through photography, moving image and installation, the exhibition considers how ecological change and human intervention leave traces on the environment that can persist across generations. Rajani’s three-channel film Lines That World a River focuses on communities displaced from the Indus Delta, where paintings and murals reconstruct villages submerged following the construction of dams and barrages. Devasher turns towards the cosmos with Latent Fields, monumental silk panels inspired by sunspots and other solar phenomena, while Protick’s Dhaka 1217 documents 15 years of transformation around the neighbourhood in Dhaka where he was born and continues to live. Drawing together perspectives from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, the exhibition considers ecological decline across national borders, and the ways landscapes can preserve histories of displacement, destruction and resilience. Until December 15; Dubai9. A Board Game Adventure at Louvre Abu DhabiInteractive displays sit alongside rare artefacts in A Board Game Adventure at Louvre Abu Dhabi. Victor Besa / The NationalShow caption: Interactive displays sit alongside rare artefacts in A Board…A Board Game Adventure transforms Louvre Abu Dhabi into a giant playground, using some of the world's oldest games to explore how people have connected across cultures for thousands of years. Designed for children but engaging for all ages, the exhibition traces the journey of games including chess, Mancala, Ludo and Carrom as they travelled between ancient civilisations and evolved into the games still played today. The exhibition combines immersive installations with rare artefacts borrowed from international museums, including some of the earliest known board game objects from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran and India. Highlights include centuries-old chess pieces carved from ivory and rock crystal, engraved backgammon pieces, ancient six-sided dice and one of the earliest known predecessors of Ludo.Interactive displays encourage visitors to solve puzzles, challenge artificial intelligence, play on oversized game boards and discover how strategy, chance and storytelling have always been part of human play. Throughout the exhibition, historical figures ranging from Queen Nefertari and Achilles to samurai Hatakeyama Shigetada are reimagined through playful “player profiles”, linking games to the personalities and cultures that shaped them.Rather than presenting games as simple entertainment, A Board Game Adventure reveals them as cultural objects that have crossed borders, adapted to societies and brought people together for millennia.Until April 25, 2027