The evening air over Muscat carried the scent of salt as it drifted into the halls of the Cultural Club, as though the sea itself wished to attend the exhibition. Inside, warm gallery lights spilled across canvases that shimmered with movement, waves rising, palm fronds bending, colours shifting in a rhythm that felt both ancient and contemporary.
This was “The Symphony of the Sea and the Palm Tree”, the latest exhibition by Bahraini artist Abbas al Mosawi, one of the Gulf’s most enduring impressionist voices. His works glowed as if lit from within, carrying the pulse of the region’s sun, sea and wind.
For Al Mosawi, Oman has long been a place that calls him back. In his words, “Oman draws me in with its pull, a quiet seduction of senses shaped by years of visits, friendships and time spent among its mountains and beaches. Living close to the landscape, even briefly, awakened something that demanded to be painted”. He speaks of Oman’s roots, its wild edges and shifting moods; and how its nature becomes a force of inspiration each time he returns.
He considers Oman’s coast unlike any other along the Gulf. Though the region shares one sea, Oman’s shores rise beneath the mountains, creating horizons that break differently throughout the day. While his childhood in Al Naeem offered open, level coastlines, Oman greets him with a dramatic interplay of rock, water and sky, a theatre of light that shapes many of his canvases. His paintings reflect this contrast: blues that fracture into gold, palms that rise like prayers, waves that hold histories.
The life in these works is rooted in memory. He describes growing up only metres from the shipyards, where palm groves surrounded the workshops and craftsmen shaped great wooden vessels. Watching those boats slide into the water left an imprint of awe. The sea became his companion, he spent long hours swimming and floating, learning its rhythms from childhood. Even today, when he swims at the marine club, he feels the younger version of himself still moving in the water. The sea taught him how to float, how to surrender without fear, how to understand its pulse. His waves rise with the weight of this lived intimacy, they remember just as he does.
In the gallery, Al Mosawi reflects on how a painting becomes part of the space it occupies. A beautiful artwork, he believes, never dies. It enters a silent conversation with its surroundings, merging with the atmosphere and becoming a layer of its soul. Each generation meets the same painting with different emotions, discovering new meanings. For him, art carries peace, peace with the sea, the sky, the land and the future. It becomes a vessel for heritage, beauty and hope across the Gulf.
Azhar bint Ahmed al Harithiyah, Director of the Cultural Club, speaks about the significance of hosting such an exhibition. “Abbas al Mosawi is a pioneer”, she notes, describing the show as part of a broader dialogue between Omani artists and creators across the Arab world. She highlights how themes of sea, palm and peace resonate deeply in the region and how exhibitions like this create vital exchanges of experience and culture.
Among the visitors, Omani painter Rashid bin Suleiman al Amri found himself captivated. A portrait artist by training, he described encountering ideas and techniques never seen before. The exhibition, he said, opened new artistic possibilities and enriched the creative scene in Muscat. In his view, Al Mosawi’s work strengthens the artistic bridge between Bahrain and Oman, presenting a distinctly Gulf identity through contemporary experimentation.
For Al Mosawi, this innermost connection reflects a truth he holds deeply, the Gulf is one continuous story. He often reflects on how much of the coastline once carried a single name, Bahrain, forming an unbroken stretch of life, trade and culture. That unity still lives in the region’s light, colours, rhythms and art. His paintings become maps of belonging, tracing shared memory rather than borders.
As the evening closed and the last visitors stepped into the cooling Muscat night, the canvases remained glowing softly on the walls, alive and waiting. “The Symphony of the Sea and the Palm Tree” stands as more than an exhibition. It is a reminder that the Gulf, with its shorelines and stories, is a single, expansive memory, written in the language of waves, light and palms; and rendered with a mastery that Abbas al Mosawi has carried all his life.
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