Ahmad Tallaa: The Living Archive

Built from layers of sand collected in the UAE, chalk powder, pigments, and acrylic, the surfaces of Ahmad Tallaa’s large-scale portraits at the centre of this show are dense and almost sculptural – as the gallery puts it, “Faces do not sit on the canvas so much as emerge from within it, as though the act of painting were one of excavation rather than construction. Cracks, scars, and accumulated marks become evidence of time’s passage …”

To 11 November.

Above: Ahmad Tallaa, Untitled (2026)