DUBAI.- The Third Line is presenting Sunrise at the Vortex, the second solo exhibition by Nima Nabavi at the gallery. Featuring a selection of new works made by the artist between 2022 and 2025, the show marks a significant evolution in his practice, both conceptually and technically. Rooted in his travels to sites across the world considered to be energy centers by different communities, the works reflect Nabavi’s deepened commitment to introspection, geometry, and modes of making that embrace technology alongside traditional tools.

Spending quiet time in these sites, the artist forged a stronger connection to himself and the universe, which prompted a turn to his practice as a way for meditation and self-exploration. Created in concentrated, inspired bursts within makeshift studios in Roswell, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, and Dubai, the resulting works exude increasing complexity and intensity in both form and color.

Roswell2223 (2023), the largest handmade piece Nabavi has created to date, consists of countless lines that create a brilliant, crystalline surface. Drawn painstakingly over the course of a year—often while crouching over the canvas to trace each line, assisted only by a nine-foot ruler—the piece reflects the artist’s belief in life: “If the intention to maintain a pattern is there, then over time, all these lines will form the pattern—like life, in the sense that if we maintain the intention to live with kindness, openness, and consistency, we will lead that kind of life, even if we may have some bad days on the way.” Collectively, the geometric forms of the work map out a universe that invite viewers to lose themselves in.

Nabavi also presents a series of works made using an architectural pen-plotter typically employed to print building blueprints. Hand-drawn digital compositions are rendered line-by-line by the machine utilizing the same tools as the artist, resulting in richly layered pieces that retain his signature intricacy while allowing for greater depth. Far from reducing his practice, technology becomes a means of enriching it, as it enables the artist to conceive and realize geometric forms that would otherwise be impossible. As Nabavi recounts: “Growing up, I witnessed my grandfather, who was a self-taught geometric artist, no longer being able to execute his ideas—which were becoming ever-complex over the years—as his body grew weaker with age.”

This memory underscores the artist’s decision to integrate technology into his process as one not to delegate creativity, but to carve out space for introspection and experimentation, as well as to ensure its sustainability and expansion. Collectively, the works in the exhibition reflect Nabavi’s evolving relationship with his practice – one that honors both his past and the possibilities ahead.

Born in Iran in 1978, Nima Nabavi is a self-taught artist based between Dubai and New York. His practice centers on geometric abstraction and its connection to the natural world, quantum processes, and psychedelic phenomena. Drawing on an ever expanding set of tools – ranging from the traditional to the technological – Nabavi creates grid-based compositions of elaborately layered, ordered forms, inspired by his grandfather, who was a master geometer for over 50 years. Nabavi’s mathematical approach and repetitive numeric symbolism rely heavily on advanced planning, precise calculations, and self-developed methodologies to ensure the vital structural accuracy of each work. This contemplative execution of intricate geometries aims to build complexity out of simple forms and reveal the emergent harmony and inherent beauty of our shared reality.

Selected solo exhibitions include Sunrise at the Vortex, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2025) and Visiting, Roswell Museum, New Mexico, USA (2023). Recent group exhibitions include Geometry and Art in The Modern Middle East, Misk Art Institute, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (2023); Gradate, Sharjah Islamic Arts Festival, Sharjah Museum of Art, Sharjah, UAE (2022); Ways of Seeing Abstraction - Works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, Palais Populaire, Berlin, Germany (2021).