Enhancing the glory of nature through colours

Karachi
His paintings are simple still lifes, works in the semi-abstract tradition; yet amid this simplicity of Ziauddin Junejo, there’s a beauty: the still lifes are passionate and explosive in the light and dark daubs of colour.
Twenty-six of his works adorning the walls of the Grandeur Art Gallery, where his art exhibition opened on Monday, are all semi-impressionistic in nature. All 26 of them are variations of floral patterns set in flower vases.
From that perspective, it may look a wee bit monotonous, but the idea behind it, as Junejo suggests, is not just a display of floral patterns but the beauty of colours and how colours enhance the glory of nature.
He says his works are all about colours, because they are the fittest representatives of nature. “Flowers are an ideal medium to glorify the beauty of nature. Basically, it is not about flowers; it is all about colour.”
By profession a barrister, Junejo has had the privilege of being the pupil of national- and world-famed artists, like Ahmed Pervez who was adept at colouring techniques.
Hence, he has inherited that quality and is taking forth the torch of colouring art lit by the likes of Pervez and Amjad Ali.
Initially a pupil of Mansur Aye in 1970-72, Junejo has to his credit many solo and group exhibitions.
Apart from still life, he also paints figures and landscapes and is, in particular, taken by the landscape of rural Sindh, both in terms of “local colour and light”. The exhibition runs up until February 10.