Art Jameel has opened a major solo exhibition by the Sudanese artist Salah Elmur at Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai. Titled Just as the Heart of a Mango is a Stone, the show opened on 1 November 2026, following a public preview on 31 October, and runs through 14 March 2027.

The exhibition gathers paintings, archival photographs, sketches and ephemera from the last decade of Elmur's practice, alongside loans from major regional and international collections, including the Sharjah Art Foundation Collection and the Saudi Museum of Contemporary Art. Together, the works offer a layered account of an artist whose visual language draws on family photographs, folk imagery and the landscapes of his upbringing.

The show is organised in three chapters: To Appear Otherwise, Salt of the Earth, and Mourning Song. The sequence moves through questions of family and the archive, then land and labour, and finally grief and shared histories. The curators, Zain Al Saie and Qutouf Elobaid of Art Jameel, frame the exhibition as an exploration of how personal memory and collective history intertwine in Elmur's painting.

Elmur, who is based between Khartoum and Cairo, is known for portraits and scenes in which figures with elongated features and watchful expressions inhabit flat, richly coloured grounds. Animals, plants and domestic objects recur as symbols, giving everyday life a dreamlike charge. His work has been shown widely across the Middle East and Europe, and he has become one of the most visible Sudanese painters of his generation.

The opening preview featured a conversation about Elmur's practice led by Melissa Gronlund and a performance by the musician Asim Eltayeb Gurashi. Jameel Arts Centre, on the Jaddaf Waterfront, has become one of Dubai's main venues for contemporary art from the region, and the Elmur exhibition is its headline solo presentation for the winter season.