In collaboration with Hunna Art Gallery, Firetti Contemporary has organised I’m Never Coming Back, a solo exhibition by Dubai-based multidisciplinary artist Aidha Badr. On view until 7 November 2025, it offers an intimate and introspective journey through transformation, centring on the artist’s evolving sense of self as she navigates the threshold between daughterhood and motherhood.
The exhibition, which presents a new series of paintings, unfolds as a visual diary. Badr’s canvases capture moments of transition that are internal and tender: the shifts in identity, the emotional textures of change, and how memory and time reshape the self. The title, I’m Never Coming Back, reflects the recognition of irreversible growth, the understanding that once transformation begins, there is no returning to who one once was.
Throughout the exhibition, recurring motifs and symbols create a poetic rhythm. The horse appears as a central image, at first fragmented or toy-like, then gradually reassembled into a full, mature form: a metaphor for becoming whole. Badr also incorporates text fragments into her compositions, which evoke intimate interior dialogues rather than explicit narratives. Meanwhile, her restrained self-portraits blur the line between presence and absence. They invite viewers to inhabit the quiet space between concealment and revelation.
Rooted in her transition into motherhood, Badr’s work speaks to the complexity of identity and emotional inheritance. It juxtaposes the voice of the daughter (curious, vulnerable, seeking) with that of the mother (grounded, reflective, protective). These dualities coexist in her paintings and mirror the simultaneity of roles women often hold within themselves.
About the artist
Aidha Badr (b. 1996, Brooklyn, NY, USA) earned a BFA from Binghamton University (NY) and an MFA from Girne American University (Cyprus). Her practice explores memory, intimacy, and the psychological landscapes of womanhood. Trained in portraiture, she uses figurative painting to examine themes such as attachment, desire, childhood, and domesticity. Her early artworks reflected on the maternal figure through the eyes of the daughter. Now, as a mother herself, Badr turns her gaze inward, re-examining how identity is formed, fractured, and renewed.
Badr has participated in several exhibitions, which include The Fifth Wife (Firetti Contemporary, Dubai, 2024); نَُّه / Hunna / Elles (Millon Paris, France, 2023); Heartache – قلب عور (Very Public Gallery, Riyadh, KSA, 2023); and As Above, So Below (solo) (Dar Al Funoon, Kuwait City, Kuwait, 2019), among others. In 2017, she received the Novogrodsky Memorial Award for Artistic Pursuits.
To get more information about I’m Never Coming Back, please go to the official web page of the exhibition.
Additionally, you might be interested in exploring Motherhood: An Art and Photography Exhibition and Rooted Echoes at NIKA Project Space.
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