Lumen invites Omani artists to explore the mysteries of light

Some of the sculptures at LUMEN look as though they have arrived carrying secrets.
One is built from stones, packed into a square and held together by two weathered bands. It resembles a fragment of an old wall, or something protected before it could fall apart. Another rises in a rough grey column, pierced by hollows. From one angle it resembles a misshapen beehive; from another, a face or a shelter. Nearby, a tall pale form seems almost human, although it never quite settles into a body.
At the opening, people stopped around these objects. They leaned closer, walked around them and exchanged guesses. The works produced the kind of curiosity that makes someone stay because an explanation has not been supplied.
That is how curator Anetta Szabo would like LUMEN to be encountered. “I would just let them see it for themselves, stop where they like, and pause at what they find interesting,” she says. “We are all so different, and drawn to different things.”

The exhibition brings together 14 artists working in painting, sculpture, installation, photography, etching and print. It is showing at Matti Sirvio Art Galleria in the Jawharat Al Shatti complex in Qurum until October 2, 2026. The gallery is open from 8am to 8pm.
LUMEN began in 2021 as a platform where young Omani artists could present new work. Each edition has approached light differently, through themes including Light in Darkness, Light in Oman and When Light Bends. This year, Szabo began with the fact that the speed of light in a vacuum remains constant, even when observers are moving differently.
The science may sound intimidating, but the thought behind it belongs to ordinary life. Plans change. People leave. Certainties disappear. Even our understanding of the same event can differ according to where we stand. Szabo wondered whether, beneath all that movement, each person has something that remains firm.
“When one finds the Light in their life, it is not a fluid, abstract thing,” she says. “It is actually the most stable, firm thing, one that becomes a foundation for life, a point of reference, a place to build your life on.”
She handed that idea to the artists and allowed them to find their own way through it. The pieces do not illustrate a physics lesson. They speak through weight, texture, space, shadow and material. Visitors bring their own memories and associations, which can change what an object becomes.

The first LUMEN explored wave-particle duality: light’s ability to behave as both a wave and a particle. Szabo found a human parallel in our difficulty accepting opposing realities, such as the physical and the spiritual. This year’s exhibition again leaves room for more than one way of seeing.
Choosing the artists took time. LUMEN was organised by invitation rather than an open call. Szabo approached artists whose earlier work suggested they could respond to an abstract, minimalist brief. Most created new pieces.
The gallery is one room, so each piece had to hold its place without silencing those around it. Many local artists have full-time jobs, leaving limited hours for their practice. Curating depended on relationships built through interest, encouragement and trust, along with the occasional reminder about a deadline.
Szabo describes watching artists interpret the same idea differently as one of the privileges of curating. She will not choose a favourite, although she is considering buying one work herself.

For people who hesitate outside galleries because they feel they do not “understand” contemporary art, she offers a gentler way in. “The art world can be intimidating, but it should not be,” she says. “Are we intimidated by a beautiful sunset? No. Art is the same.”
There is no examination waiting at the end of the room. “Come, enjoy it, and take away the things that genuinely touched you,” she says. “No need to pretend.”
Szabo also hopes visitors will remember the artists and follow what they make next. Oman’s art community is growing, but artists need places to show and people willing to take their work seriously.
“Culture is not just something of the past,” she says. “It is also of the present: all the artistic practices that are born today.”
Eventually, visitors leave the quiet room and return to the heat and movement of Muscat. The bound stones, pale figure and hollowed form stay behind, their meanings unresolved. Perhaps that is their gift: they ask us to pause and consider what, when everything else changes, still helps us find our way.