Betty Muffler
Betty Muffler (b.1944, Watarru, South Australia, Australia) is a highly respected senior woman, Pitjantjatjara artist, and revered ngangkari (traditional Aṉangu healer) based in Indulkana, APY Lands. Her paintings—particularly the series Ngangkari Ngura (Healing Country)—are visual expressions of her ngangkari practice, depicting sacred healing sites and her ongoing cultural responsibility as a healer. Muffler works with Iwantja Arts and has exhibited nationally and internationally.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes six significant works by Betty Muffler.
Issam Kourbaj and Stolon Press
Issam Kourbaj comes from a background of fine art, architecture and theatre design. Since 1990, he has lived and worked in Cambridge, eventually becoming an Artist in Residence at Christ’s College, a Bye-Fellow (2007-2011) and a Lector in Art. His wall-mounted work, composed of layered cardboard, reflects on the history of human creativity through the lens of displacement and migration.
Stolon Press is an art and publishing collective founded in 2019 by Simryn Gill and Tom Melick, working between image, text, and book. Their work displayed on the blue platform comprises stitched cardboard panels arranged as carpets, presented under the title Mixed Business.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art features five significant works by Issam Kourbaj and five significant works by Stolon Press.
Leila Shirazi
Leila Shirazi is an artist and designer based between Abu Dhabi and Singapore whose practice explores how nature is transformed into postindustrial landscapes, reflecting on memory and survival. Working across painting, drawing, textiles, and photography, she often activates Persian and Mughal miniature traditions from the 14th to 17th centuries to narrate new ecological and cosmological histories.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes eight significant works by Leila Shirazi.
Mohamed Majeed Almubarak
Mohamed Majeed Almubarak (b. 1994, Bahrain; based in A’ali) is a filmmaker and artist. His work has shown at NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, Misk Art Institute, The David Collection, and Bait Al Salmaniya. His films have screened at regional and international festivals, with collaborations featured at the Sharjah Biennial, Berlinale, Whitney Biennial, Serpentine Galleries, MUBI, and Tate Modern.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes two significant works by Mohamed Majeed Almubarak.
Natalia Papaeva and BANG ON Collective
Natalia Papaeva is a Buryat-born, Netherlands-based visual and time-based artist. Her work, rooted in text and often featuring her endangered native language, explores cultural identity and resistance through movement, image, and sound. A Rijksakademie resident (2022–2024), she has exhibited internationally and received awards including the TENT Rotterdam Award and Frans de Wit Prize.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes two significant works and a performance by Natalia Papaeva and BANG ON Collective.
Nomasmetaforas and Luis Alberto Aguillon
Nomasmetaforas is a Colombian–French collective integrated by the philosopher Clara Melniczuk and the artist Julian Dupont. Blending contemporary art, communal pedagogy, and more-than-human philosophy, their practice builds in relation with Indigenous organizations from Cauca, Colombia.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes six significant works and performance activations by Nomasmetaforas & Luis Alberto Aguillón
Sa Tahanan Co.
Sa Tahanan Co. began in the UAE as an arts collective that platforms Filipino creatives, first across the Gulf and then the globe — bridging the accessibility gap with institutional opportunities. Co-founded by curator Anna Bernice delos Reyes and artist Augustine Paredes in 2020, the collective focuses on arts practice as a means of diasporic representation in creative and cultural industries.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes six significant works and a food installation performance by Sa Tahanan Co.
Vincent Namatjira
Vincent Namatjira (b. 1983, Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia) is a Western Aranda artist whose work expands ideas of migration to include ancestral displacement, colonial trauma, and First Nations sovereignty. Known for his bold, satirical portraits, he challenges historical narratives and reclaims Indigenous presence in national and global histories. Blending personal and political themes, his paintings act as migratory witnesses—speaking back, crossing imposed boundaries, and reclaiming identity across generations.
Gateway 2025 Exhibition by Abu Dhabi Art includes eight significant works by Vincent Namatjira.
CURATOR
Brook Andrew
Curator, Gateway Exhibition 2025
Brook Andrew
Curator, Gateway Exhibition 2025