Revelation is an immersive installation by Juma Alhaj that unfolds through distinct spatial conditions, forming a gradual journey toward Hijr, a secluded environment for pause and reflection. Shaped through light, material, and inscription, the exhibition brings together a series of spatial conditions that shift the viewer’s attention from outward observation toward a more inward, sustained awareness.
Developed over the course of 421’s Artistic Development Program, the work extends the artist’s ongoing interest in solitude and its potential. Rather than representing withdrawal, Revelation constructs the conditions for it, creating a sequence in which time slows, movement softens, and attention gathers.
Across his practice, Alhaj works with gestural marks that move between the legible and the abstract. Drawn from a vocabulary he has developed over time, these inscriptions are not fixed statements but shifting forms, appearing in fragments, repetitions, and dispersions across different surfaces. Language becomes material, carrying traces of thought without resolving into a single reading.
The exhibition begins in a bright, open space where engraved glass elements and a large-scale diptych bring Alhaj’s gestural vocabulary into different material forms. Across the glass surfaces, inscriptions shift between visibility and disappearance, casting partial shadows and reflections, while in the diptych, the same gestures gather into a denser, more concentrated field.
The final space, Hijr, introduces a different spatial condition. Dimly lit and grounded by a carpeted floor, it is anchored by a monolithic water feature and surrounded by suspended elements that carry further inscriptions through light and shadow. The space holds the exhibition’s central proposition around tafakkur, understood here as a sustained moment of attention and inward reflection.
Revelation remains open in its structure, allowing meaning to surface through movement, pause, and the time spent within the work.
Juma Alhaj is a participant of the 2025 cycle of the 421 Artistic Development Program (ADP), facilitated by Jolaine Frizzell.
ADP is an annual capability-building initiative that supports early-career artists in the UAE to expand their practice, experiment with new approaches, and develop a cohesive body of work for their first institutional solo exhibition.
About the Artist
Juma Alhaj (b. 1990, UAE) is a visual artist working across painting, installation, sculpture, and text-based practices. Rooted in journaling, gestural mark-making, and repetition, his practice explores memory, language, interoception, and the traces left by lived experience. Through gestural abstraction, Alhaj examines the relationship between the internal and external worlds, translating intangible states such as thoughts, emotions, bodily sensations, memories, and moments in time into physical form.
Alhaj holds a Bachelor of Science in Visual Communication from the American University of Sharjah and a Master of Science in International Relations, with a focus on Visual Rhetoric. His art practice took form following notable residencies, including the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation, and an art mentorship under Ted Ramsey, resident artist at the New School of Northern Virginia. Alhaj was recently selected to participate in the 2025 cycle of the Artistic Development Program at 421 Arts Campus.
His solo exhibitions include Interoception, curated by Shamma Al Mheiri, Iris Projects (2026); The Return, curated by Iris Projects, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2023); and Frame of Mind, curated by Iris Projects for Foundry by Emaar, Dubai (2021). Group exhibitions include Abu Dhabi Art 2024 with Iris Projects, Abu Dhabi (2024); Narratives of Belonging, curated by Hamda Ali, Al Safa Art & Design Library, Dubai (2024); Unofficial Histories, curated by Iris Projects for Art of Living, Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi (2024); Unwritten, Unspoken & Told, Dubai Calligraphy Biennale (2023); The Blue Room, curated by Iris Projects for Art of Living, Jubail Island, Abu Dhabi (2022); the Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival (2021); COVID Conversations, Tashkeel, Dubai (2021); and Explorations in Abstraction, Al Marsam Al Hor and Al Qattara Arts Center (2021).
Alhaj's work is part of several public and institutional collections, including Barjeel Art Foundation, the Aldar Corporate Collection, Bvlgari Art Collection, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Culture, the American University of Sharjah, Qasr Al Watan Collection, and the Dubai Collection.
Juma Alhaj currently lives between Paris, France and Sharjah, UAE.
