KARACHI: Two award-winning Pakistani artists will display their work at the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi art fair next month, highlighting the growing role of Gulf galleries and cultural institutions in bringing Pakistani art to international audiences.

Frieze Abu Dhabi will run from Nov. 19 to 22 at Manarat Al Saadiyat in the UAE capital, bringing together 84 galleries from 64 cities across 37 countries and regions. Organized by Frieze, a London-based international art platform known for its influential contemporary art fairs, the event will mark its first expansion into the wider West Asia, North Africa and South Asia region.

Lahore-based Hamra Abbas will exhibit a new collection of works through Lawrie Shabibi, a Dubai contemporary art gallery that represents artists from the Middle East and South Asia.

Fellow Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi’s Water Bodies will be displayed at Mamsha Beach on Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island as part of Frieze Sculpture, the fair’s outdoor public art exhibition.

“It’s played a major role in growing the international audience for my work,” Abbas told Arab News by phone when asked about institutional interest from Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf.

“I’m currently finalizing a number of new museum commissions in the region that I look forward to sharing soon.”

Abbas, a recipient of Pakistan’s Sitara-i-Imtiaz civil award for her contribution to the arts, said her association with the UAE stretches back more than 15 years. She is also a UAE resident on a Golden Visa, a long-term residency program for foreign professionals, investors and people with specialized talents.

“My work has always been received very well in the UAE, since I participated in Sharjah Biennial in 2009 and won the jury prize,” she said.

The Sharjah Biennial is a major international contemporary art exhibition held every two years in the UAE emirate, bringing together artists from around the world.

Abbas also won the Abraaj Capital Art Prize in 2011 and has worked with Lawrie Shabibi for more than a decade.

She said the Dubai gallery had been particularly important in connecting her work with private and institutional collections internationally after she moved back to Pakistan from the United States in 2015.

“Without Lawrie Shabibi’s support, my work may not have achieved the same visibility and reach over the years,” she said.

Her Gulf links also extend to Saudi Arabia, where her work is part of the collection of the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture, or Ithra, a major cultural institution in Dhahran that houses a museum, theater, library and exhibition spaces.

Abbas has also produced work for major cultural platforms in the UAE, including a large-scale public art commission for Expo 2020 Dubai.

“I am presenting a new body of works at Frieze Abu Dhabi. I look forward to it,” she said, adding that she expected to be able to share more about the experience after the fair.

Qureshi, also based in Lahore and a recipient of Pakistan’s Sitara-i-Imtiaz for miniature painting, has an established exhibition history across the Gulf.

His Water Bodies, dated 2026, will be presented by Thaddaeus Ropac, a major international contemporary art gallery in Austria in 1983.

In 2025, Qureshi participated in Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah with Between Sacred Cities (Zubaydah Trail), a large-scale installation commissioned by the Diriyah Biennale Foundation.

The work drew on the historic pilgrimage route from Kufa in Iraq to Makkah, commissioned more than a millennium ago to serve pilgrims, and incorporated references to Makkah’s Zamzam Well and Madinah.

Qureshi has also previously produced a site-specific project for Abu Dhabi Art Beyond in Al Ain in 2018 and participated in the Sharjah Biennial in 2011.

Frieze Abu Dhabi builds on the 17-year history of Abu Dhabi Art and is being staged in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi.