An unparalleled use of the ‘common language of love’

International floral designer Harijanto Setiawan enthrals audience with his exceptional skills 

Karachi

With a cut here and a snip there, international floral designer Harijanto Setiawan presented his skilful craft of flower arrangement by transforming plain wooden structures into colourful pieces of art, at a local hotel on Monday evening.

Settled in Singapore, Setiawan is the President of the Floral Designers Society Singapore and works closely with designers to bring out the best using flowers.

The event organised by Study Group of Floral Artists, saw floral enthusiasts laud Setiawan as he created more than ten pieces using different kinds of flowers.

But cutting away stem and roots wasn’t the only thing required to create the desired arrangement, rather the floral designer also used a small drill to create room for other flowers. Fascinated by shapes, he said that “shapes should be distinctive”.

Creating a wreath, he warned all to be wary of the plant for it had a lot of sap in it which can be sticky, hence, one needed to be careful in cutting off the stem.

With Louis Armstrong’s ‘What A Wonderful World’ playing in the background, the attendees had their eyes fixed on the stage where Setiawan, showing the mastery of his art, mixed variety of greens and lilacs with readiness.

One of the pieces titled ‘Secret Garden’ was indeed fascinating because the decoration of pink roses, the main colour of the exhibit, was hidden underneath the rest of the design. He said the title for the exhibit was apt for the ‘beauty of the piece lay inside’.

The last of the works, a bridge shaped structure was fully made of Pakistani bamboos and could be easily decorated with multiple flowers and plants if one had some idea of striking colour combinations.

Filling it with pink and white flowers to be followed by greener plants, Setiawan generously used Turkey grass among other items to top the structure off.

However, one of the attendees did not agree with his style this time remarking that the ‘less is more’ policy worked well most of the times.

Ending the show, Setiawan said that people should never give up on flowers because they can help everyone irrespective of mood swings.

“Flower is a common language of love.”

Given that this is Setiawan’s first trip to Pakistan, Shahimah Saeed who represented the group said the artist was having a fantastic experience in the city and felt that the scenario was much different than what is shown to the world, and not only that, he also planned to try Pakistani cuisine especially Chicken Tikka and Biryani, she laughingly added.

Leading Pakistani actor Mahira Khan who had also graced the event to support her mother, Shahimah, shared that she had been seeing her mother’s craft since an early age and every time people sighed when an exotic plant was named she wondered why they did so, but she added that perhaps any beautiful art done with heart leads to admiration.

Giving details about the group, another member Fehmida Hashmi observed, “The idea is to arrange flowers in a very artistic manner and floral art doesn’t mean putting one flower here and the other there, rather it’s a whole branch of art. It’s not something as common as putting together flowers in a vase. This is real artistry and to create the arrangements we have taken dry material, wood, branches and no artificial things have been used in making the pieces.”

Following this event, Setiawan would also be holding workshops for artists aspiring to learn his art from him.