Portrait of Kais Salman
Amid the abandoned real-estate projects, bailout plans and downsized dreams of Dubai, an art markert is flourishing. Dubai has become the driver for an explosion in Middle Eastern contemporary art, with more than 60 art galleries, regional offices for international auction houses suchs as Christie's and Sotheby's, and several modern-art museums opening, including a satellite of the Louvre in 2012 and the Guggenheim in 2014.
"Dubai still has a lot of expansive wall space to fill with art and connoiseurs with deep pockets to pay for it", says Khaled Samawi, owner of Ayyam, a Damascus-based contemporary-art gallery, which opened in 2006 and has since since expanded to Beirut and Dubai.
The studio of 33-year-old Syrian
