Hussain Sharif is one of the United Arab Emirates’ foremost conceptual artists, who has contributed widely to the development
of art in his native country, founding the Emirates Fine Art Society in Sharjah along with his brother, Hassan Sharif, and Mohammed
Kazem, Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim and Abdullah Al Saadi. His body of work, which includes painting, drawing, collage and
installation, is conceptual and experimental. Central to his work is an engagement with Emirati identity, with Sharif using collected
materials found in the streets, to speak to the socio-political and economic shifts his region has witnessed since the mid-seventies. In the artist’s words: ‘I believe that artists should not simply search for old materials used many years before…The streets of our cities are really crowded with materials and the sanctity of any kind of
individual material is lost. I like to recycle my art’. Born in Dubai in 1961, Sharif received a degree in Theatre Design from the High Institute of Kuwait, after which he worked as the head designer at Sharjah TV. He has exhibited widely in the UAE, Egypt, Russia, Holland, France and Germany
