Few places in the world have developed as dramatically in recent years as the Arabian Gulf, with artist Abdul Qadir Al Raes helping to colourfully capture some of the changes.

Many of the humble grand buildings now deserted by their people, trampled over by time with cracks and crevices filling crumbling walls and creaking doors, do not escape the artful eye of Abdul Qadir Al Raes of Dubai.

Ever-anxious to capture the heartbeat of the UAE on canvas, he is artistically chronicling his country’s old neighbourhoods, houses, and forts.

Portraying time-passed architecture that displays the skill and creativity of age-old engineers - as well as the aroma and texture of wood, ropes, clay, and sea stones –his artworks arouse the inner-most emotions of Al Raes, who loves his native land, and he lovingly wants to serve and help preserve it.

Moods are clearly aroused through images of cityscapes and surrounds that frequently identify with a specific place and time.

While conditions and time – particularly in the fast-developing environs of Arabia – might be forever changing, art is a medium that is limitless and eternal, with masterful strokes outlining the inter-action between art and locale.

Created through the use of brushes, colours, fabrics and papers, the paintings of Al Raes capture and blend personal sentiments of longing, loss, sadness and remembrance, together with the visual daily scene witnessed by many in passing.

With the distinct reality of witnessing through painting something lost that can never be recovered, whether the brush of Al Raes is teasing with the reality of the curves of mountains, valleys, plains or beaches - depicting at times the landscapes of the UAE with deliberate superficiality and at others with overt profundity – his work always engages them in a festive celebration of nature. Al Raes has over the years sought various artistic adventures, venturing at one time into calligraphy, with his early works mostly containing the single letter WAW, which roughly corresponds to the English letter O.

Mixed simply and unpretentiously with his unique watercolours, this was a clear reflection of his own endearing personality.

Future endeavours led to the world of abstract colour, and through an individual style and freshness he appeared to be trying and adding further to earlier work by Kandinsky and his apprentices.

His ability to adorn the viewer with an affinity towards certain colours - while keeping others beyond their sphere of influence - makes Al Raes’ gift for commanding the abstract apparent, with him activating the interchange of values between the viewer and the receiver.

Trying to test the effects of colours on each other as well as on the receiver, and allowing for differences in culture, location and sensitivity, he often retreats to abstract painting in his spare time.

While trying to uncover what is hidden in colours, as if they were absolute values that hide the tale of shape, harmony and accord, what is most important to Al Raes is that his abstract works carry with them his spirit with harmony, and a beauty that overflows from within into the souls of others.

Intangible though this may seem, the work of Al Raes is a reflection of his innermost thoughts and feelings.