A painter's poetic gesture blooms in Alserkal

At Taymour Grahne Projects’ new home in Alserkal Avenue, artist Gail Spaien invites viewers to enter quiet, impossible interiors—where flowers bloom, tables hover, and the laws of physics are gently ignored.

In the heart of Dubai’s buzzing Alserkal Avenue, the rhythm of contemporary art gets a new note this September—one that’s subtle, soft, and deeply personal. Taymour Grahne Projects, known for championing cross-cultural artistic conversations, is opening the doors to its first permanent space in the region. And stepping in with them is American artist Gail Spaien, whose new solo exhibition Arranging Flowers marks both the gallery’s inaugural Dubai showcase and Spaien’s debut in the Middle East.

Born in 1958 and based in Maine, Spaien has spent more than thirty years refining a visual language that quietly questions the familiar. In Arranging Flowers, her paintings stretch beyond the conventional boundaries of still life and landscape. They occupy a liminal space—between dream and domesticity, between what’s real and what feels emotionally resonant.

“Making a painting is like arranging a bouquet,” Spaien shares. “Both are gestures of care—poetic reminders of a shared humanity.”

Arranging Flowers by Gail Spaien opens 18 September 2025 at Taymour Grahne Projects, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai.

It’s a fitting metaphor. Her canvases brim with floral arrangements, patterned textiles, windows, tables, and vases, all orchestrated into compositions that seem to breathe with intentional stillness. But don’t mistake them for quaint. These are scenes that shimmer with visual contradictions: tables float without a solid foundation, horizons are hinted at rather than defined, and depth is replaced by flattened patterns and spatial ambiguity.

Take Waypoints, for instance. The painting’s central gesture is deceptively simple: a moonrise over the sea. But Spaien’s focus lingers on the in-between. Apple blossoms and potted plants echo the rhythm of the seascape, pulling nature into domestic space. Cascading shades of blue dissolve the boundary between indoors and out, memory and moment.

Elsewhere, in works like Habitat, Spaien toys with visual logic. A circular table adorned with an intricate white cloth floats mid-frame, untethered and surreal. In Ginkgo Leaves, vessels are anchored along the painting’s edge. At the same time, the titular leaves hover above—a gentle nod to ikebana, the Japanese art of floral arrangement that balances natural forms with surrounding space.

Her interiors evoke presence through absence. The rooms feel recently exited, the silence meaningful. Her still lifes, much like Magritte’s surreal portraits, become portals. “They’re not renderings of real places,” Spaien explains. “But they suggest the deep familiarity of memory—or the suspended unreality of dreams.” In this delicate visual world, simplicity becomes structure. Decorative patterns aren’t just embellishments—they’re narrative devices. They imply histories, gestures, and the quiet rituals of daily life. Spaien’s work invites us to pause, to observe the ordinary with wonder, and to see still life as a site of disruption rather than stability.

For Taymour Grahne, founder of the gallery, this introspective tone feels right for the launch of their Dubai chapter. “Gail’s work creates space for reflection—on nature, memory, and the quiet rituals of daily life,” he says. “It’s a meaningful way to begin our journey here, presenting artists whose practices transcend borders and resonate across cultures.”

Arranging Flowers does more than inaugurate a space—it sets the tone. The exhibition marks a moment of expansion for Taymour Grahne Projects, which began in New York in 2013 and now enters its twelfth year with a permanent space in the region’s leading arts district.

In a city where skyscrapers shimmer and speed is often the default setting, Spaien’s canvases ask viewers to move slower, look closer, and imagine the improbable. Here, flowers don’t wilt. Tables don’t need legs. And silence speaks volumes.