The Middle Eastern galleries selected for the initiative include Athr Gallery, Saudi Arabia and Lawrie Shabibi, UAE. Athr Gallery, located in Jeddah, will stage a solo presentation of a Palestinian artist’s work at London First . Hazem Harb will explore themes including war, loss, trauma, human vulnerability and global instability through his multi-media, conceptual works, ranging from large-scale paintings through to digital photography and video.

Pen to Paper hopes to achieve clarity around the notions of true knowledge as a valuable and recyclable tool that can serve as a means to not only empower but also liberate through true learning. The exhibition opens tomorrow evening from 7.30 p.m. to 9.00 p.m. at Athr Gallery and will run for a month.

If knowledge is power, then the production of knowledge is a command just as influential. It is this notion, the production of knowledge and understanding, which is to be deconstructed and explored. This group exhibition is specifically curated to create a dialogue between artists and audience in a bid to question the diffusion of information, notions of knowledge and truth as well as the power of misinformation. Al Madad Foundation and Athr Gallery are pleased to announce Pen to Paper, a group exhibition based on notions around knowledge.

Athr Gallery from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, will be participating at this year's inaugural ART13 fair in London from March 1st to 3rd. The fair is a brand-new event that aims to reflect the shifting dynamics of the art world through engaging with emerging art hubs, galleries and artists worldwide, being a great platform for ATHR. They'll be bringing a solo booth to the ' London First ' programme stand, featuring the work of acclaimed Palestinian multi-media artist Hazem Harb. Harb will be showing "Impossible Travel, Me and the Other Half & Inside-Outside", a presentation involving conceptual images of a hypothetical wall standing in his home country Palestine. 

Athr Gallery In collaboration with Al Madad Foundation, is pleased to announce Pen to Paper, a group exhibition of works from private collections across the Middle East in support of literacy programs for disadvantaged children. 

With their 5th year with Art Dubai around the corner, and a currently successful solo exhibition of Manal Al Dowayan, Athr Gallery has come a long way since their beginning a few years ago. We sat down with Hamza Serafi, one of the founders, and got to know just how they do it.
 

للعام الخامس على التوالي، تم اختيار صالة أثر غاليري من جدة لتمثل المملكة العربية السعودية في معرض آرت دبي للفنون 2013. ويشهد المعرض مشاركة نخبة الصالات الفنية من الشرق الأوسط وآسيا وأفريقيا، إضافة إلى مشاركة بارزة من الدول الأوروبية والأميركية ليبلغ إجمالي عدد الدول المشاركة 29 بلداً.
وتأتي أهمية «Ø¢Ø±Øª دبي» باعتبارها منصة مثالية تشهد على التقارب الفني بين الشرق والغرب. فيما شهدت السنوات الأخيرة زيادة في الاهتمام بالفن السعودي من داخل المملكة وخارجها، يأتي آرت دبي ليشكل فرصة فريدة لعرض المواهب الفنية السعودية على النطاق العالمي وتسليط الضوء على الفنانين السعوديين وصالات العرض في المملكة.

Manal Al Dowayan’s first solo exhibition in the Kingdom has been a long time coming. And when her exhibition finally opened last weekend at Athr Gallery, it deservedly received wide acclaim and excitement, especially among the art enthusiasts who have been following her work outside the country.

Saudi artist Manal Al-Dowayan chose to step outside the protective boundaries. She wandered off, away from the barbed wires and unfettered independence, and traveled far and wide with her camera in hand to document a life far removed from the perimeters of utopian boundaries.
AN: Women are now included in the Shoura Council and you also talk about women’s issues in your photographs. What’s the one issue that you’re keen to fix? MD: Women driving. How can you be financially independent when you can’t even reach your workplace? Movement is the most restrictive thing that exists in our country.

Athr Gallery is proud to announce the 3rd annual Young Saudi Artist exhibition coming up this spring. The gallery is putting out an open call for all young artists to send in their artwork for the chance to have their work displayed in the group exhibition in April 2013.

Listening to Saudi artist Manal Al Dowayan and observing her artworks, one is reminded that art and life look more like dreams than techniques and that ordinary concepts can become very colorful when elaborated out of joy and capacity to be in contact with one’s emotions. 
Athr Gallery’s first pavilion displays Al Dowayan’s latest work “The State of Disappearance,” a collection dealing with a need the artist has always felt to preserve women’s identity and that she has intensively explored, from different angles, in two previous and very famous participatory projects: “Suspended Together” and “I Am.”