Al Nayed

Al Nayed is a retrospective exhibition of work by the Emirati artist Abdulqader Al Rais at Opera Gallery Dubai, Gate Village Building 3, DIFC. It runs from 8 to 25 October 2026.

The gallery writes that the title "evokes movement, growth, and elevation". The exhibition follows a career of more than five decades, from early observational and impressionistic works to geometric abstraction. It presents five series. The Alghaf Series draws on the Ghaf tree, and the Calligraphy Series (Hurufiyya) treats the Arabic letter as a visual form. The Impressionism Series revisits early views of Emirati architecture and landscape. The Alhaa Series is made of watercolours on paper, and the Abstract Series sets the artist's square motifs within landscape-based compositions.

The show includes works from the artist's private collection and new works made for the exhibition. The selected works published by the gallery include My Dubai (2014), an oil on canvas of 300 by 200 cm. Watercolours on paper from the Serenity (2016), Yesteryear (2022) and Memories (2025) series are also listed.

Abdulqader Al Rais was born in Dubai in 1951. He grew up with his elder sister's family in Kuwait, where he trained at the Free Art Studio. He took a degree in Sharia law at the United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, in 1982. He received the inaugural Sheikh Khalifa Prize for Art and Literature in 2006. Retrospectives of his work were held at the Institut du monde arabe, Paris, in 2018 and at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Abu Dhabi, from 2018 to 2019. Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha, holds his work.