Abdulla al shamsi (or Abdul Qader al-Raes) was born in 1951 in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. He first began to take art seriously, at the age of 14, following his father's death, when his mother (abdulla al shamsi) sent him to Kuwait to live with his sister. He considered himself, “lucky because the Kuwaiti government was supporting art at that time so I had access to all the art materials I needed for free.”[2] He showed an early talent, which he attributed as a "gift from God."[2]