Title: Dhow in Motion
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas and cardboard
Dimension: 71x 69.5 cm
Year: 2025

I explore the poetic tension between ancient tradition and shifting modernity through the lens of the Emirati dhow racing boat. Rendered in fluid sign wave patterns, the piece captures the kinetic rhythm of wind against sail, not as a literal portrayal, but as a visual memory coded in motion and color.

The palette of green, turquoise, light blue, and beige evokes the layered essence of the Arabian Gulf: seafoam, shallow reefs, bleached hulls, and windswept sands. These tones undulate across the composition in calculated waveforms, referencing not only the sea’s rhythm but also the unspoken continuity of heritage passed from generation to generation.

Set against a bold orange background, the hue of late afternoon desert light, the composition vibrates between heat and fluidity, land and sea. The dhow, abstracted yet unmistakable, becomes a symbol of both endurance and evolution. In this work, I do not paint the dhow as an object, but rather as a living pulse a waveform echoing across history, identity, and the open horizon.