AB Gallery devotes this year's summer exhibition to seven artists from six different nations. In addition to the AB Gallery artists Fereydoun Ave, Jos van der Beek, Monika Jurkiewicz and Hassan Meer, three new artists will be represented. Safaa Alset, Sahand Hesamiyan and Ahmed Zaibi will showcase their works for the first time at the gallery.

The paintings of Dutch artist Jos van der Beek and Tunisian artist Ahmed Zaibi could not be more different. Jos van der Beek's completely abstract paintings are consequently held in white and grey colours, modulated in soft shades that give an impression of meditative calmness, subdued mood and sometimes even melancholy. In contrast, Ahmed Zaibi's colourful works are bursting with uninhibited vitality and life-affirming energy. The artist gains his inspiration from the sub-consciousness. He depicts mysterious faces, which appear out of the colourful paint mass on the canvas.

Fereydoun Ave is one of the foremost proponents of the now-emerging Iranian contemporary art movement. His work series "Divas" is a modern take of the seven guardian angels of Persian mythology. In this work he combines human, animal and architectural elements. Mysticism also plays an important role for Sahand Hesamiyan, who belongs to the youngest generation of the Iranian art scene. The geometrical sculptures are related to the mystical and, at the same time, mathematical dimensions of the Islam – more particularly to its spiritual orientation: the Sufism. Omani artist Hassan Meer too is searching for spirituality and contemplation. With his photographs he questions the death and the mortality of man. Representing the European counterpart, Monika Jurkiewicz takes up the saga of the ancient Greece mythology "The Rape of Europe". She thereby transfers the myth, in terms of form and content, into a contemporary language. For this purpose she draws the scene, which is characterized by brutality and tenderness, in a forceful and dynamic way.

Syria-born artist Safaa Alset tames the rough material of iron by forming it to delicate silhouettes of high heels. The word "shoe" may sound simple, but in fact incorporates the Arabic meaning "what do you want?". An ordinary shoe thus turns into a metaphor for the female identify question.

Image: © Safaa Alset, AB Gallery