Dubai-based German artist uses pomegranate sculptures to celebrate UAE-Germany ties

Dubai-based German artist uses pomegranate sculptures to celebrate UAE-Germany ties

While UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan held high-level talks in Berlin this week, a Dubai-based German artist is quietly embodying the cultural bridge between the two nations through her distinctive pomegranate-inspired sculptures.

Petra Kaltenbach, 64, has spent more than two decades in the UAE, building an artistic practice that fuses European and Arabic traditions. Her latest work, a series of sculptural pomegranates titled Everybody's Darling, explores themes of love, peace and universal connection through a fruit that holds sacred meaning across cultures and religions.

The President's state visit, marked by full military honours including a 21-gun salute and escort by German fighter jets, underscores the depth of bilateral relations that were first established on May 17, 1972, only months after the UAE's formation in December 1971. The two countries signed a strategic partnership in 2004, which was updated and upgraded during Sheikh Mohamed's previous visit to Berlin in 2019.

During the current visit, officials are expected to sign new agreements covering artificial intelligence, energy and investment sectors, reflecting economic ties that have flourished in recent years. Germany's non-oil bilateral trade with the UAE reached $15.51 billion in 2025, marking a 14.15 percent increase from the previous year, with UAE exports to Germany surging more than 50 percent.

From advertising to art

Kaltenbach moved to Dubai in 2004 after running an advertising agency in Germany for two decades. In 2015, she transitioned to full-time art, working across painting, sculpture and digital media. Her innovative approach includes embedding QR codes, NFTs and augmented reality into traditional artworks.

Recognition came quickly. In 2016, she was shortlisted for the International Emerging Artist Award. Two years later, her video art was projected onto the facade of Burj Khalifa, and she was named best UAE-resident artist at World Art Dubai. In 2022, she won Best Emerging NFT Artist at the Gulf News Web3 Awards.

Since 2019, Kaltenbach has served on the curatorial team for World Art Dubai, one of the largest art fairs in the MENA region. The fair's 10th edition in May 2024 attracted over 10,000 visitors and featured more than 300 galleries and solo artists from 50-plus countries.

The pomegranate as universal symbol

The pomegranate runs through much of Kaltenbach's recent work. In Judaism, it is one of the Seven Species native to Israel, symbolizing abundance. In Islam, it appears in the Quran as a fruit of paradise. In Christianity, it represents resurrection and spiritual renewal. In ancient Persian culture, the fruit was used in diplomatic negotiations as a symbol of mutual understanding and peaceful conflict resolution.

A pomegranate is a symbol of love. I feel the pomegranate is everybody's darling. It represents love, health, wealth, the divine, life itself across cultures and religions.

She describes her signature piece as "a love-dispensing pomegranate, a peace bringer," calling such messages particularly important in the current global climate.

Her Everybody's Darling series now comprises roughly 40 sculptural pieces. Lips sculpted onto the fruit's surface give it an expression of warmth and affection. Other variations explore different themes: a winged "Divine Darling" references spirituality, while a slowly melting "Be My Darling" reflects surrender to emotion.

The 3D-printed sculptures, produced locally in the UAE, range from 15 centimetres to over a metre in diameter and can be scaled larger on request. Each piece is hand-finished, with some painted in patterns inspired by Arabic design. Kaltenbach is also developing wall-mounted pomegranate sculptures and a new piece adorned with flowers exploring the theme of wealth.

Cultural diplomat

In 2022, the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs commissioned Kaltenbach to create five paintings, five videos and an augmented-reality installation marking 50 years of UAE-Germany diplomatic relations. Events in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Ras Al Khaimah each drew more than a thousand visitors.

She has also connected Ras Al Khaimah's RAK Art Festival with the German Consulate General and Goethe Institut, facilitating invitations for German artists to participate.

Kaltenbach, a recipient of Dubai's ten-year cultural visa, noted that the German community in the UAE has nearly doubled in the past four to five years, part of a broader expatriate presence that comprises approximately 88 percent of the country's 11.2 million population.

I try to connect my government with the cultural scene here.

Upcoming exhibitions

The new pomegranate sculptures will be showcased at World Art Dubai, scheduled for November 19 to 22. Kaltenbach currently serves as strategic advisor to the fair, having helped shape its artist-in-residence programme.

She is also strategic art advisor to the UAE's first dedicated German gallery, founded by two German-Arab brothers and expected to open around the same time as the fair.

In October, Kaltenbach will travel to Ankara for the ninth edition of SDGs Through Arts, a residency running from October 8 to 11 at Galerim Sanat gallery. The project, initiated by Zee Arts founder Zaahirah Muthy in collaboration with UN-UAE and UNESCO, pairs 17 international artists with 17 Turkish artists to create work addressing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.

As high-level diplomatic meetings proceed in Berlin this week, Kaltenbach's pomegranates offer a complementary narrative of connection between Germany and the UAE, one told through art rather than policy, but rooted in the same spirit of partnership that has defined relations between the two countries for more than five decades.