Pakistani painter reviving art in Peshawar

PESHAWAR, Pakistan

Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, is known as Pakistan’s city of flowers.

But over the years it has seen brutal terror attacks.

The world was shocked when terrorists attacked the army public school on Dec. 16, 2014, and killed 134 students.

But that is not the real face of this city. Before the wave of terror, it was known as the city of arts, music, and culture. Many famous poets, including Rehman baba, Khushal Khan Khattak, and Raza Hamdani were born in Peshawar.

“Our history is rich in culture. We had the tradition to sit together in the evenings and enjoy our evening kehwa (hot drink) with our friends and rabab, (a musical instrument), but when terrorism hit us, all of these sources of entertainment were snatched from us,” said Ali Sajid, a Peshawar-based painter and visual artist.

“I was not good in studies but I was brilliant in arts and thanks to my fine arts teacher in the school, I pursued my career in this. When I went to Singapore, I took classes from Zhu Hong. He is a great artist. I learned the art of watercolor from him. I have also worked with a group named Urban Sketchers in Japan. From there, I have started doing live paintings of buildings and nature,” he told Anadolu Agency.

Sajid, who has traveled to nearly 22 countries, left Pakistan in 2006 to learn more about the arts and returned to his hometown to teach children in 2014.

He is now an assistant professor in the architecture department at the City University of Science and Technology in Peshawar.

He arranged a special class for his students for World Painters Day that is celebrated on Feb. 27, where he will be taking them to the streets and will do a live painting to create awareness about the arts for the residents of Peshawar.

“I moved back when the security situation got better. Here I saw that there are no art galleries in my own city, not even on the government level and this was a very dangerous thing for the youngsters. Then I decided to start my own studio and teach kids the art of creating masterpieces on canvass. I started taking my students out in the field and we will be doing that on World Painters Day also,” said Sajid.

- Understanding psychology of colors

All the colors in the world have their specific psychology and effect on the human mind and artists have to learn that before creating art, said Sajid.

“If you are just painting without learning the impact of the colors then you are not an artist and then you should just paint for yourself and take it as a hobby,” he said. “Do not put that out for the public. It is very important to understand the psychology of the colors because if you do not do that you can put your audience into mental stress.”

- Art as therapy

According to the American Art Therapy Association, art therapy is a kind of therapy that integrates mental health and human services by using “active art-making, creative process, applied psychological theory, and human experience.” Even just Looking at a piece of art can also help one deal with mental illness.

“When people come to me with severe depression or any other mental illness and show their interest in art, i.e. sketching, painting, working with clay, carving, sculpting, doodling and scribbling or coloring, I take them closer to their interest, step by step, while doing the therapy for their illness,” Kiran Sajid, a Peshawar-based psychologist, told Anadolu Agency. “And in many cases, people get better in just days rather than months or years.”