KAN’DU
Exclusively curated for PATINA MALDIVES
artgmle
ART GALLERY MALÉ - MALDIVES
Art Gallery Malé is a private art gallery, located in the heart of Maldives and named after the island nation’s bustling capital, Malé City.
Established in 2019, Art Gallery Malé provides a platform for artists to collaborate and create freely.
With collections and commissions spanning a vibrant exposition of disciples, Art Gallery Malé works closely with emerging and estblished artists to showcase breakout talents and diversity among creatives in the Maldives on both local and international scenes. Art Gallery Malé hopes to pave a new path for the art world; one that deviates from conventional circumstances and will not shy away from toasting to more out-of-the-box ventures often overlooked by casual consumers of art. Our vision is to celebrate art in its rawest, most authentic form, as a medium of creative expression and enduring collective experience.
We welcome audiences and enthusiasts around the world to join us in creating opportunities for artists in the Maldives, and to contribute to the booming creative history of our small yet resilient island communities.
KAN’DU
There is a word in Dhivehi that holds an entire world within it. Kandu. The sea. In the Maldives, the ocean is not a backdrop to life, it is life. The boundary from which everything edible and everything beautiful emerges. To grow up on these islands is to grow up in constant conversation with water, to read its color, to eat from its depths, to measure time by its tides.
This is an invitation to sit at the edge of that world.
Kandu brings together a collection of paintings, sculptures and decorative ceramic works that trace the quiet conversation between the sea and shore. The works move between the immensity of open ocean and the intimacy of the shoreline, the luminous blue of Maldivian water, the creatures that inhabit its depths, and the land’s patient offerings. The flavors that have defined island life across generations.
This is not art about the Maldives. It is art from it, made by hands that know these waters, this light, this land. hands that know these waters, this light, this land.
ARTISTS & ARTWORKS
Eagan Badeeu
Eagan Badeeu is a Maldivian painter known for vibrant portrayals of local landscapes, seascapes, and everyday life. His work captures people in candid moments, weaving them naturally into their surroundings, and he has also illustrated books throughout his career. He first gained recognition in 2000 at the “Funoas” exhibition at Esjehi Gallery in Malé, and has since shown his work in group and solo exhibitions both locally and abroad.
His most celebrated works are 18 triptychs commissioned by the National Art Gallery for his 2008 solo exhibition “Theyokulain Dhivehi Raajje.” Rooted in childhood memories, these oil paintings capture Maldivian island life with calm, vivid color that blends personal emotion with quiet observation.
Shallow Passage
A bokkura glides through luminous turquoise shallows between islands, propelled forward by a long wooden staff in the hands of the navigator. In his signature style, Eagan’s oil painting take on a soft, pastel-like quality that feels almost like memory itself, capturing the quiet, unhurried act of crossing from one island to another, a journey that was once simply part of everyday Maldivian life.
A Shallow Passage 2023
30 cm x 35 cm Oil on canvas
Mohamed Lufshan (Lubbe)
Mohamed Lufshan (Lubbe)’s passion for art was ignited in childhood, inspired by his mother’s cake sketches and his grandfather’s intricate woodwork. A first-place win in a grade 6 art competition on the theme of ‘Poverty’ marked an early milestone in his creative journey. For Lubbe, painting is the art of depicting form and colour in an aesthetically pleasing way.
He continuously pushes his boundaries through experimentation, believing in engaging with subjects directly, “I focus on what it is.”
His work explores concepts of Ordered Complexity and Emergence, where simple structures self-organize into layered compositions through a deliberate, predetermined technique.
The coconut palm is deeply woven into the fabric of Maldivian life, a tree so giving that little of it goes to waste.
Thriving in the humid tropics along sandy shores, it has fed, sheltered, and sustained island communities for generations. Like all living things rooted in the earth, the palm draws its life from light, water, and air, quietly turning sunlight into fruit through the simple miracle of photosynthesis.
Coconut
C oconut 2019
50 cm x 50 cm
Acrylic on canvas
Mary Halym
Born in Malé in 1982, Mary’s creative path began with a small handmade bag venture that gradually led her into drawing, painting and pattern making. Self-taught and curious, she found her way to watercolors, drawn to the freedom they offer and the way water moves across paper, bringing images to life with both realism and spontaneity.
During the pandemic, while living abroad, she channeled her connection to home into a series of botanical works featuring Maldivian fruits and vegetables. Through her art she continues to contribute to the local creative community, sharing pieces of Maldivian life with a wider audience.
Chillies-Mirus
In the Maldives, no meal feels complete without the heat of a good scotch bonnet. Known locally as mirus, these fiery chillies find their way into nearly every dish, most naturally alongside a bowl of garudhiya, the beloved Maldivian fish soup eaten daily across the islands.
Mary captures them here in every stage of ripeness, from deep green to burning red, glowing against a black background in the luminous detail her botanical watercolors are known for.
Watercolor on pape r
Chillies - Mirus 2020
42 cm x 29 cm
Samah Ahmed (backtoblue)
Samah is a contemporary painter based in Malé, working from a rooftop studio where she creates large, blue-toned oil paintings. For over 20 years she has been developing her “Hues of Blue” series, a body of work rooted in childhood memories of the Maldivian sea and shaped by what she describes as unconscious mark making, painting for the act of painting itself.
She completed a BA in Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts, London, graduating in 2005, where the series first began to take form. Today her process is driven by intuition, watching how paint moves across the canvas and finding beauty in the unexpected.
Untitled
Part of her “Hues of Blue” series, this untitled work is painted in a blue that exists nowhere else. Samah hand mixes all her own pigments, producing a shade uniquely hers, closely reflecting the distinctive color of the Maldivian sea. Bold oil paint strokes move across the canvas with confidence, driven purely by instinct and the act of painting itself.
Untitled 2020
100 cm x 100 cm Oil on canvas
Maimoona Hussain (Maena)
Maena is a painter, muralist and sculptor with a Masters in Fine Arts from Beaconhouse National University, Pakistan. Alongside her art practice, she teaches at an international school and supports emerging artists through the local NGO, Maldivian Artist Community (MAC).
Raised in the Maldives, her work is deeply rooted in nature and themes of transformation, exploring cycles of life, time and metamorphosis through bold yet sensitive mark making. More recently she has turned toward Islamic calligraphy as a fine art practice, while still working across sculpture and painting.
Time
A conch shell cast in plaster and fabric, finished in gold. In the Maldives, the conch was once sounded to call people together, its hollow call carrying across islands before modern life took over. Maena’s sculpture holds that memory, a tribute to a sound that marked time, gathering, and community in island life.
What remains
A sand cast brass fish head, made during Maena’s Masters program as part of her thesis exploring childhood memories and environmental hazards of the Maldives. Smooth and golden, the form is reduced to its bare essence, a quiet but weighted reflection on what the sea once held and what we stand to lose.
58.42 cm x 45.72 cm
Mixed media sculpture
4” x 2” x 4”
Mixed media sculpture
Ahmed Azmee (Baachy)
Ahmed Azmee, known as Baachy, is a self-taught artist who uses art as a way to share how he sees the world. Quiet by nature, he is drawn not to outward beauty but to the subtle creative undercurrent running through everyday life.
His work spans contemporary canvas art with a preference for rich, vibrant color. Rather than settling into a single style, he approaches each piece with a different technique, making his body of work intentionally varied and hard to categorize.
Untitled
At first glance the canvas reads as pure white, but look closer and two octopus forms emerge, their silhouettes built up through raised 3D marks that catch the light just enough to reveal themselves. It is a subtle piece, very much in line with Baachy’s way of seeing, finding shape and life in what is not immediately obvious.
U ntitled 2020
80 cm x 120 cm
Acrylic on canvas
Saali (blueshell.mv)
Saali is a Maldivian artist based in Malé, known for her intricately hand painted acrylics on terracotta and her hand painted wooden earrings and keytags. Patterns drawn from nature run through most of her work, giving it a consistent yet organic feel.
She enjoys experimenting with different forms and materials, always finding new ways to bring her love of natural detail into her craft. Her newest venture is ceramic art, hand building and decorating pieces that reflect the same nature inspired patterns she has always been drawn to. It is a medium she has taken to with curiosity and confidence, and one that continues to grow as a central part of her practice..
Ceramic series
A collection of 17 hand-built ceramic pieces decorated with motifs drawn from Maldivian nature. Using a mix of sgraffito carving and hand painting, and fired in a local kiln, each piece carries Saali’s signature details: fish, jellyfish, stingrays, corals, and the Malikuruvaa flower.
The glazes shift across the series from warm sandy tones to soft seafoam greens, making this collection a natural and confident step into ceramic art by Saali.
BSC-TD35/26 2026
8 cm diameter trinket dish with yellow flower
BSC-TD17/26 2026
9 cm diameter white trinket dish, stingrays & fishes
BSC-TD15/26 2026
9 cm diameter white trinket dish, corals & fishes
BSC-BP51/26 2026
11.5 cm diameter bowl with sgraffito fishes
BSC-WH71/26 2026
15.5 cm diameter Wall hanging piece, holes
BSC-TD50/26 2026
13.5 cm diameter trinket dish, sgraffito floral details
BSC-TD18/26 2026
9 cm diameter trinket dish, carved
BSC-TD37/26 2026
7 cm diameter white trinket dish, sgraffito floral details
BSC-TD16/26 2026
9 cm diameter white trinket dish, jellyfishes
BSC-TD48/26 2026
11.5 cm diameter trinket dish, Thaana Akuru detail
BSC-TD05/26 2026
11 cm diameter trinket dish with blue flowers
BSC-TD24/26 2026
9 cm diameter small trinket dish with fishes
BSC-TD27/26 2026
9 cm diameter
small trinket dish with fishes
BSC-TD28/26 2026
9 cm diameter small trinket dish with fishes
BSC-TD61/26 2026
2.5 cm diameter wall hanging disc
BSC-TD29/26 2026
7 cm diameter flower trinket dish
2026
11 cm diameter
trinket dish, white with blue flowers
BSC-TD13/26
Ahmed Khaleel (Uthurey Art)
Ahmed Khaleel, known as Uthurey Art, began painting as a hobby during a long career as a foreign service officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he served for over four decades before retiring in November 2023.
Working in mixed media abstract art, he draws inspiration from the oceanic landscapes of the Maldives, with a focus on coral reefs, their movement, resilience, and fragility. Through layered textures and fluid color, his work reflects both a personal reconnection with nature and a quiet call to protect the ocean for future generations.
Reef series
Three mixed media works building on layered poured paint and intricate hand-drawn detail. The pieces move between explosive fiery tones, aerial ocean blues, and richly colored coral formations, each capturing a different view of reef life. Together they form a vivid and textured portrait of the underwater world.
Golden Reef Rise 2026
30.48 cm x 30.48 cm
Mixed media on canvas
Crimson Reef 2024
30.48 cm x 30.48 cm
Mixed media on canvas
The Deep 2023
50.8 cm diameter
Mix media with resin coat on canvas