The language of flowers in art is rich, subtle, and has culturally diverse

meanings. Where in China it evolved into a secret language, in Italy the ancient
flower deity, Flora, is often depicted against a mass of blossoms; a fertility
symbol. In western art, with insects hidden amongst leaves, it referred to
transitory nature of life. While artists like George'O Keefe and Elizebeth
Blackladder, have taken flowers as a subject far from the banal images of
Victorian floral paintings, Hockney and Patrick Proctor turn to flowers for a
respite and solace from their complex works and lives.


Mona Naqsh (born 1986)
The daughter of the legendry maestro Jamil Naqsh, is amongst the few
Pakistani artists who took flowers as a subject, and thus is a rare exception.
Being jolted by her father's floral portrait series, she began with floral still live
at an early age driving her inspiration from Turkish art, painting great masses
of wild flowers, including Daisies, Almond blossoms, Frangipani and
Cornflowers, arranged in crystal vases or ceramic bowls. Her technique, like her
choice of medium is a reflection of her father's. With soft flowing strokes,
delicately painted petals, and flowers amongst veined leaves, her varying sized
canvases speak of her optimistic understanding of nature, and of the strength of
organic matter within. She pays special attention to details playing with light
and colour to produce myriad shades.
Its interpreted by observers as symbolic of freedom of aesthetic thought, which
finds its way even in the most restricted circumstances. Her eye for detail is a
signature feature of her work.
Her residence can be called an oasis of fresh blossoms and her work, a great
example of 'Unique Perceptual Art'; a method that stresses on importance of
visual interest. She has created dream like portraits that gain an ethereal
quality, because of the strong focus on light and technique. With a free form
sense of being and movement, they appear a part of, and yet apart from this
world. Its interesting to note that her oil paintings on canvas are those of
crystal vases while images on paper contain porcelain ones. Her compositions
joyfully fill surfaces with glorious colours, portraying a full range of technical
abilities.
While the crystal vases are a contrast to the natural depiction of flowers, their
great crisp details and how they reflect light off their exterior, is opposed to the
subtle shades and lines of the table and clothe they rest on. A great emphasis is
seen on the arrangement. With a line to separate background wall and ground,
and layers of colours of great texture, flattening the plane, the floral
arrangement is further pushed to the front, yet is connected to the background
by textural techniques.
Speaking of technique, a solo ink and pen drawing stands apart and yet above.
Primarily black and white with subtle addition of colour, diagonal rays of light
from window and an abstracted interior, the attention still drifts back to
flowers that reach out to the light. In her 27 years career, starting from 1987,
when her first paintings were exhibited, Mona's art has shown an evident
evolution. Where initially the dominant element of her work was the young
artist's discovery of nature, it now reflects a maturity and refinement that
communicates the power of nature.





















Ahmed Pervez (1926-1979)
The Peshawar borne mad scientist of colours reflects his temperament,
vacillating between withdrawn aloofness and sudden spasms of protest, in his
vibrant paintings, injected with erratic yet sensitive emotions.
Vibrant explosions of colours, contained within triangles and toy like shapes,
radiating shades, and the intensity of oil sticks, give his paintings a raw energy
and a brilliant sun like glowing quality of colours merged with a mechanical
design pattern. Crooked flowers and leaves that end with sharp points and the
colouration of powder blue, leafy green, rich purple, cadmium orange, and red
which if treated differently would appear harsh, provide his compositions with a
mystery and excitement that makes the view shift around the piece.
The flowers appear as lilies in the arrangement, yet their boldness and how
contorted they are, have made viewers wonder why he called himself an
organic and non-representative painter. Like the master Bashir Mirza, he draws
his inspiration and importantly choice of colouration from the vibrancy of his
country. Interestingly enough, his work besides projecting an oriental feel, has a
detailed Sindhi and Mughal decorative influence, with a radical sense of
geometry. In 1978 a gouache on paper gave a calligraphic feel, with the
bursting seeds and exploding flowers being distorted and extended, appearing as
alphabets.
Unlike Mona Naqsh's highly realistic work, Pervez's art is abstract and symbolic ,
transported to another level because of the spontaneity of coloration,
heightened pigmentation and the contrast of soft feminine shades behind
fluorescent orange, greens and yellows ; all revealing his fluctuating restless
personality. His dynamic, bold and charmingly balanced compositions have led
him to be called ' Van Gogh with a twist'. According to Goerge Butler's
statement for the Gaurdian "It can be said categorically, that his mature style is
at the most two years old".
Surely his art is to transcend time, and communicate to many generations.





















Abdul Wahab Jaffer ( born in 1914)

The creator of luminous abstract artworks, initially worked under influence of
the artist Ahmad Pervez, experimenting with abstractions, eventually finding
an idiom rendered with acrylic paints, pastel, or in a contrasting mood, of
fantasies woven with ink and pen drawings. Flowers, often contained in vases,
bursting into diamond like shapes, are seen in his work. The enjoyable drama of
contrasting colures and his style rendered in medium of gouache marked the
emergence of a new talent.

It was a well-received one; the soft explosion of colours contained by Speed
Breakers " painted at the outer edges of the canvases , displaying his ability to
impart a mood evoking exuberance and infectious love of life and art. Behind a
lush green one might discern the violence of red, behind that, the colours of
grey.

Jaffer's world offers visual effect of melting colours, layered in a way that
creates pattern, textures and overall composition of blues, greens , yellows and
mauve while creating a sequence of fantasy , his awareness of the contrast and
power of space , endows his work with a sense of energy and freedom . His is a
world of sensuous rhythm, abstract faces and floral spiral across the canvas in
brilliant outbursts of colour like exploding flowers. Totally absorbed in the
surface before him, and in the interplay of light and colours; merging the two
elements until they are indistinguishable for the creation of an intuitive impulse
that permeates the work and his greatest.