Summer in strokes: The season in every shade

The summer is often described through rising temperatures and endless blue skies. At Stal Gallery and Studio in Muscat, however, it is reimagined as something far more poetic, a season of memory, movement and colour, where every brushstroke carries the warmth of the sun and the rhythm of the sea.

Running from July 1 to August 22, the Summer Exhibition brings together works by HH Sayyidah Afra al Said, Adnan al Raisi, Juma al Harthi, Anwar Sonya, Hassan al Meer, Mohamed Mehdi, the late Moosa Omar, Idris Al Hooti, Hussain Obaid, Tarnini Agarwal and Janin Walter, each presenting a distinct interpretation of the season while contributing to a harmonious visual dialogue.

Walking through the gallery feels much like travelling across Oman itself. Brilliant cerulean seascapes shimmer with fishing boats, distant mountains and coastal villages, evoking the country’s maritime soul. Nearby, expressive abstract canvases pulse with energetic brushstrokes, where cobalt blues collide with crimson and ochre, capturing summer not as a landscape but as an emotion. Elsewhere, vibrant portraits of Omani women dressed in richly patterned traditional attire celebrate heritage through radiant palettes that seem to glow beneath an imagined golden-hour sun.

Among the featured artists is Janin Walter, an art researcher, curator and urban designer based between Muscat and Berlin. Her mixed-media works, Colours of Diba / Oman and Suspended Horizon, belong to her ongoing On Oceans I series, exploring the fleeting relationship between sea, light and memory.

Rather than depicting the ocean literally, Walter dissolves familiar horizons into fields of colour where sea and sky drift into one another. In Suspended Horizon, the line that usually anchors the eye appears to hover weightlessly, inviting viewers to linger in the uncertainty between presence and disappearance. The result is less a place than a feeling, an impression of standing before water as memories quietly surface with the tide.

While Walter’s work embraces quiet contemplation, the wider exhibition celebrates summer through both movement and stillness. Some artworks pulse with expressive brushstrokes and dynamic forms, capturing the energy and vitality of the season, while others draw on Oman’s cultural identity through depictions of traditional attire, coastal landscapes and mountainous terrain. Together, they weave heritage, memory and contemporary expression into a vibrant visual tapestry that reflects the many moods of summer.

Ahmed al Yazidi, an Omani art enthusiast, found the exhibition’s diversity its greatest strength.
“What struck me most was how every artist spoke a completely different visual language,” he said. “Some paintings are bold and energetic, others are calm and reflective, yet together they tell one story. They capture the spirit of summer, not just through sunshine and sea, but through memories, culture and the emotions the season awakens.” The exhibition proves that summer is more than a season. In the hands of these artists, it becomes a feeling, one painted in waves, woven into tradition and suspended somewhere between memory and the horizon.