More Fiery by Night’s Blackness

Oil on canvas

25 by 30 inches

In this duet of light and dark, gray and brown shadows are illuminated by strong strokes of crimson, scarlet, magenta and rose. In the center, a burst of mid-yellow anthers cluster on the hibiscus’s rose filament.

It was inspired by cheeky red blooms that brighten Karachi’s gray and dusty streets in late autumn and early winter. Hardy, resistant and seemingly impervious to pollution and despair, red hibiscuses bursting forth in joyful contrast to viridian-green bushes bring to mind Christmas poinsettias I remember seeing, when very young, in American stores.

The painting’s highly textured black-green background helps lighter and brighter colors to pop, reminding me of a quote from Shakespeare’s ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, in which Lepidus discusses Antony’s failings.

‘His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,

More fiery by night’s

Blackness; hereditary, rather than purchased; what he cannot change,

Than what he chooses.’

Everything I paint teaches me something. For me, the lesson of this particular hibiscus is that the blackness in my character, perhaps in all of our characters, is there to highlight the good, more vital, enduring and important qualities that co-exist with it.