Gallery Isabelle marks its 20th anniversary with Move, pause, return, a 20-day exhibition unfolding from 23 March to 11 April 2026 with a series of encounters, reflections, and works. Marking two decades of engagement with artists from across the region, the exhibition features 20 artists, with each artist’s work accompanied by a short note contributed by emerging regional curators, independent writers, and practitioners. The artworks will be unveiled one day at a time, leading up to a gathering of artists, artworks, and community, on the twentieth day (11 April) when the exhibition will be complete.
Gallery Isabelle launched in 2006 in Al Quoz 1 Industrial Area, in a warehouse space known as B21, as a precursor to the wave of galleries and cultural initiatives that would later establish themselves in the district. In 2010, the gallery relocated to what would later become Alserkal Avenue, continuing its programme under the name Gallery Isabelle (formerly Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde). Founded by Isabelle de Caters, the gallery, which is now an anchor of the UAE’s art scene, has been shaped by a series of formative encounters and gestures that often unfolded beyond the conventions of a commercial gallery model. Throughout, de Caters has been driven by a commitment to making artists visible and to creating contexts for their work to circulate.
Isabelle de Caters, founder of Gallery Isabelle, said “Everything started with the artists I encountered. It was never only about beautiful surfaces, but about their work and practices as vehicles for memory, emotion, and storytelling. I have always valued listening to and reflecting on artists’ stories, which capture the ineffability of our present time and expand the mind. There was no long-term plan to create a gallery. Rather, there was a commitment to support artists while also giving access to the lives, practices, and ideas shaping our region. Things developed organically, and I’m proud of what we have made possible together.”
For Gallery Isabelle’s 20th anniversary exhibition, 20 artists are presented in an unfolding and accumulative manner, with one artwork added each day until it reaches its culmination on 11 April 2026. The exhibition explores how time rarely moves in the orderly ways we assign to it. Twenty years can feel both expansive and fleeting; twenty days can open a space for reflection that far exceeds the moment it marks. Works of art travel through these durations in complex ways. A gesture made in one context may return years later carrying entirely different resonances, its meaning shaped not only by the artist’s intention but by the conditions through which it moves.
Art does not remain fixed in the moment of its making. It gathers significance through encounters, conversations, and the shifting circumstances in which it is seen again. What once appeared quiet may suddenly feel urgent; what once seemed immediate may reveal its depth only through return. In this sense, artworks function less as static objects than as propositions that continue to unfold as they move through different communities, histories, and ways of seeing. The artists brought together in this exhibition reflect this movement across time. Their works emerge from distinct practices and geographies, yet share a capacity to hold moments of experimentation, humour, resistance, and care. Seen together, they form not a survey but a constellation: one that reveals how ideas travel, reappear, and acquire new meanings as they pass through different contexts and generations. In dialogue with these works, a group of emerging curators and writers has been invited to contribute reflections that unfold alongside the exhibition. These responses do not seek to explain the works, but to enter into conversation with them—bringing present-moment perspectives into encounter with earlier gestures. In this way, the exhibition becomes a field of echoes across time, where different voices return to the works and allow their meanings to deepen rather than settle. Within this rhythm of movement, pause, and return, meaning emerges through accumulation. In this moment, Gallery Isabelle becomes a crucible where these encounters are held. A place where artistic ideas continue to circulate, gather force, and return through the communities that sustain them.
About the exhibition Move, pause, return, Isabelle de Caters said: “While revisiting the early days of the gallery, I realised that I didn’t want to draw a line through time and simply look back. A gallery is a place of ongoing return and reconsideration—like a painter who, after looking closely, can never paint the same thing in the same way twice. As I reflected on the last two decades, I found myself returning to the works that had stayed with me over the years—those that were fragile, resilient, unruly, sometimes carrying a certain ‘take it or leave it’ attitude.”
Artists: Hassan Sharif, Bahman Jalali, Mohammed Kazem, Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, Bita Fayyazi, Lara Baladi, Fereydoun Ave, Haleh Redjaian, Shaikha Al Mazrou, Nargess Hashemi, Manal Al Dowayan, Hoda Tawakol, Vikram Divecha, Raed Yassin, Lubna Chowdhary, Alia Zaal, Rami Farook, Sarah Brahim, Mohammad Alfaraj, Jumairy
Writers: Duygu Demir, Osemudiamen Ekore, Rémi Homs, Rotana Shaker, Yalda Bidshahri, Hafsa Al Khudairy, Lucas Morin, Iaroslav Volovod, Gaith Abdulla, Ashkan Zahraei, Aram Alajaj, Ahmad Makia, Salem Alsuwaidi, Ruba Al-Sweel, Indranjan Banerjee, Munira Al Sayegh, Abdulla Aljanahi, Sara Bin Safwan, Zainab Hasoon, Rahel Aima
Press release from Gallery Isabelle
Image: Lara Baladi. The Eye Of Adam. 2010. Image courtesy of Gallery Isabelle, Dubai
