Wafa Al Falahi conjures a bestiary of dreamlike creatures

Wafa Al Falahi’s debut solo exhibition at Hunna Art Gallery unfolds like a page from an imaginary bestiary, where creatures emerge from dreamlike landscapes shaped by memory, childhood reverie and the shadowy logic of fables. Feathers in the Reeds, Milk in the Mud brings together paintings and ceramic sculptures that dance, wait, hide and converse across worlds both intimate and mysterious, drawing a lineage from Ibn al Muqaffa’ through Leonora Carrington, artists who understood that imagined beings need carry no fixed moral.

The paintings, rendered on paper and canvas with pastel and pigment, build their forms through a process that echoes the Rorschach test: shapes emerge from paper mâché raised in thick, deliberate relief, as if the artist were coaxing hidden creatures from her own subconscious. Oranges and pinks bloom against deep greens and blues. A hand reaches toward a sun. A blue figure stands in stillness. Each composition holds the soft, haunting quality of half remembered dreams, where logic dissolves and the impossible walks freely.

The ceramic sculptures carry the narrative further, stepping out from their painted landscapes to meet the viewer on common ground, neither purely animal nor entirely human, but something altogether stranger. These beings inhabit the gallery space with an odd grace, their unfamiliar forms inviting curious, lingering attention.

The exhibition inaugurates Hunna Art Gallery’s temporary space on Al Serkal Avenue and continues until November 24, 2026.

Imagery courtesy of Hunna Art Gallery (@artdubai).