A hushed silence descended across the outdoor theatre at the 42nd Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2023, when the screen on stage lit up as artist Alex Dowail painted one brilliant visual after the other, using only light.

“This is something new and creative. When visitors watch the story unfold, they want to know what’s next. Every time the scene changes, someone in the audience goes ‘wow.’ The details he draws in his art is very specific; you can actually see the hair, the eyes and other features,” says Eva, Event Manager, Yellow Moves Event Management Company.

Dowail began his artistic journey with spray painting, creating street art and graffiti as a teenager, then turned to working with sand art and glass, before he settled on using light as a medium to express his ideas.

Having perfected the unique technique of creating visuals with a ray of light, Dowail uses both hands to paint on two sides of a luminescent canvas. “After I write the story, I have to do hours of practice to create the compositions. Then the sound master puts music to it. Between the performance we also have a Live sound master who pushes the appropriate sound effects at the right moments to enhance the stage performance,” says Alex Dowis, America’s Got Talent finalist.

Along with scintillating live acts and creative workshops close to 460 cultural activities are taking place at the mega event that runs at the Sharjah Expo Centre from November 1 to 12. Celebrating this year’s theme of ‘We Speak Books’, 2,033 publishers and exhibitors from 109 nations around the world are participating at the Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) 2023.

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