A brush with Abdul Rauf

The young boy grew into an accomplished artist and his vibrant “heritage” paintings are going to be exhibited at Yas Hotel’s Light Box gallery from today (September 10).

The two months exhibition, ending on November 5, is part of the Crossroads art series organised by Swiss Art Gate UAE, a Swiss and Emirati cultural initiative. Just as the previous two art shows, Crossroads #3 aims to make art accessible for everyone who walks into a public place, and to showcase the work of Emirati and UAE resident artists.

This time around, the exhibition, entitled “The Beauty of Heritage”, is dedicated to a single artist, the Emirati Abdul Rauf Khalfan, who lives and works in Dubai.

“Since I displayed some few artworks of Abdul Rauf for the first time during the exhibition ‘Tracking the Emirates’ in RAK Hospital in 2010, I am fascinated about his minimized objects on the canvas — objects that appear very colourful, framed with black structured lines. All have their specific place and it’s always interesting to discover more symbols of a whole story by talking with Abdul Rauf,” said Kurt Blum, general manager of Swiss Art Gate UAE.

Abdul Rauf Khalfan draws images from his vivid imagination, passion for local heritage and his dreams. His art becomes his means of expression where he gets inspired by challenges in life, which drive him to portray his emotions through his paintings. Whether is his Emirati women wearing burkas, the “golden” face masks, his traditional “local” houses or iconic symbols like the dhalla, the Arabic coffee pot, a palm tree, a mosque and the nearly always present white birds, Abdul Rauf’s paintings are full of overwhelming colours, in straight, simple lines, and a style bordering Picasso’s early years of flirting with what became known as Cubism.

This, though, was not always the artistic style that inspired Abdul Rauf, the artist’s earlier work, no longer to be seen, being usually done in charcoal. The organic need to paint took over Abdul Rauf since he was a young boy. He started drawing in his school years and his talent was encouraged by his teachers. In 1992 when Abdul Rauf was nine years old, he entered a competition on the theme of the unification of East and West Germany. He participated with a drawing of a big cracked wall for which he received his first award, in Abu Dhabi.

Later on, at another competition for a logo for the World Tennis Club, which received around 10,000 entries, he earned his second win. Another success followed at a competition for the Dubai Shopping Festival where he secured the ninth place for designing greeting cards for Rivoli Group. At that stage, he was advised to join the Dubai International Arts Centre and his father did take him there twice for art classes, but eventually Abdul Rauf decided to work on his skill alone and stopped attending.

“I began experimenting with different media,” recalls the artist.

“I would take pieces of plywood, put them on the floor and draw on them with charcoal.”

In those early artistic stages he would search his muse in newspapers and magazines and find it in the form of horses, shaikhs, traditional coffee pots and buildings of local tradition and heritage. One day a visitor from Oman came to his family home and seeing Abdul Rauf’s work, decided to buy one drawing. This first experience of art sale left the young artist somewhat sad to part with one of his works, but in the same time, he felt very proud to for his art pieces to be admired and wanted.

Yet, this experience only made him be harder on himself and decided to push his talent to new heights. Thus, soon after this sale, Abdul Rauf decided to burn all his paintings and drawings in an attempt to improve his talent and create better art in the future.

“You are born poor but you have to die rich in your heart, confident in your work and your achievements. Use your inner power and your mind and if you lose, carry on with another venture. God says you will get what you want, but you need to work hard for it,” says Abdul Rauf, explaining his philosophy on life.

One night, at the age of 22, he had a dream about a woman figure walking on a beach and collecting seashells. He got up and began painting this image from the dream. This time, though, he found charcoal to be too harsh and since he wanted to give his portrayal a soft, dream-like feel, Abdul Rauf began painting in oil, for the first time. It was also the first time he painted a woman figure. However, to this day his favourite subjects remain symbols of Emirati culture and heritage. His style is marked by simplifying the objects he sees, hence they appear as pictograms, symbols or signs. In most of his paintings there are predominantly three main elements within three rectangles: a man, a girl and a bird.

After first experimenting with oil paints, he also tried his hand at acrylic paint, to get a more vibrant colour mix, but it wasn’t his medium of choice so he went back to using oil paints. He preferred the colourful effect of oil painting, which helped him perfect his work when he used it in abundance.

Now, in this Crossroads # 3 exhibition, Abdul Rauf’s paintings will be exhibited for the first time in Abu Dhabi, also marking the young artist’s first solo exhibition.

—silvia@khaleejtimes.com