الرسام بالمعرض الفني.

In Arabic, especially in the present tense, you often do not say a separate word for is / am / are.

So:

الرسام بالمعرض الفني
literally looks like: the painter at the art exhibition

But the natural English meaning is: The painter is at the art exhibition.

This is called a nominal sentence.
If a speaker wants to make it more explicit in Levantine, they might say:

الرسام موجود بالمعرض الفني
= The painter is at the art exhibition.

Here, بـ means something like in or at.

So:

بالمعرض = بـ + المعرض
= in the exhibition / at the exhibition

In Levantine Arabic, بـ is very commonly used for location, where English might use in or at.

A more formal or MSA-style version would often use:

في المعرض الفني

So if you learned في for in, that is still correct—but بـ is very natural in Levantine speech.

الـ is the Arabic definite article, meaning the.

So:

• الرسام = the painter
• المعرض = the exhibition
• الفني = the artistic / art-related

In Arabic, if a noun is definite and it has an adjective, the adjective also becomes definite.

So:

• معرض فني = an art exhibition
• المعرض الفني = the art exhibition

That is why both words have الـ.

Because in Arabic, adjectives usually come after the noun they describe.

So:

• المعرض الفني literally = the exhibition artistic meaning = the art exhibition

This is the opposite of English, where adjectives usually come before the noun.

More examples:

• البيت الكبير = the big house
• البنت الذكية = the smart girl

So the order noun + adjective is completely normal.

It describes المعرض, not الرسام.

So the sentence groups like this:

الرسام | بالمعرض الفني
= The painter | is at the art exhibition

And inside that phrase:

المعرض الفني = the art exhibition

A learner might first wonder whether it means the artistic painter, but it does not.
If الفني were describing الرسام, it would need to be next to it:

الرسام الفني

But in your sentence, الفني is attached to المعرض.

A common Levantine-style pronunciation would be roughly:

er-rassām bil-ma3raḍ il-fannī

A few useful notes:

• الرسام is pronounced more like er-rassām, not al-rassām
• بالمعرض sounds like bil-ma3raḍ
• الفني sounds like il-fannī

The 3 in ma3raḍ represents the Arabic letter ع, a sound that English does not really have.

Because ر is a sun letter.

When الـ comes before a sun letter, the l sound of الـ disappears in pronunciation and the next consonant is doubled.

So:

• الرسام is written with ال
• but pronounced roughly er-rassām

This happens in many Arabic words, for example:

• الشمس → pronounced ash-shams
• الطالب → pronounced at-tālib
• الرجل → pronounced er-rajul / ir-rajul

But the spelling stays the same.

It is understandable in both, but it feels especially natural in Levantine because of بالمعرض.

In Modern Standard Arabic, you would more often see:

الرسام في المعرض الفني

In Levantine, using بـ for location is very common:

• بالبيت = at home / in the house
• بالجامعة = at the university
• بالمعرض = at the exhibition

So the sentence is very friendly for a Levantine learner.

Yes, depending on context.

The word معرض can refer to:

• an exhibition
• a display
• a showroom
• sometimes a gallery

So المعرض الفني may mean:

• the art exhibition
• the art gallery

The exact meaning depends on the situation.
If the meaning has already been given to you, then just follow that meaning—but it is good to know the phrase can be flexible.

It can work as a full sentence in Arabic, because Arabic often allows short present-tense nominal sentences without is.

So yes, it can mean a full sentence:

The painter is at the art exhibition.

It could also sound like a short caption, headline, or brief contextual statement. Arabic often allows this kind of compact wording more easily than English.

If someone wanted to sound more explicit in conversation, they might say:

الرسام موجود بالمعرض الفني or الرسام هلّق بالمعرض الفني
= The painter is at the art exhibition now.

So the original version is short, natural, and grammatical.