Saif Azzuz: Invisible Fish

This first solo exhibition in the Middle East for the SF-based Libyan-Yurok artist takes its title from a poem by Joy Harjo, which considers cycles of transformation across land, water, and time, moving from submerged environments to human settlement and industrial presence. This show includes paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and moving images, tracing an ecological and cultural history of the UAE prior to large-scale urban development; Azzuz approaches land and water as lived, relational systems rather than extractive resources, foregrounding marine environments, fishing practices, and water as both sustenance and connective force across geographies.

Through material experimentation and research-driven enquiry, Azzuz positions water not only as a subject but as a shared condition – one that links place, history, and the ongoing negotiation between human activity and the natural world. The Algae Bloom series of paintings are central to this, with Azzuz working wet-on-wet so that paint bleeds, drips and merges to produce organic forms that feel suspended and continuously evolving. So rather than literal depictions, these works function as sensory impressions of aquatic ecosystems shaped by rhythm, fragility, and transformation …

Recommended. To 3 April.

Above: Saif Azzuz, Algae Bloom 2 (detail) (2025)