Anna Boghiguian's latest autumnal exhibition is a pasquinade of petals in blushing pink, professes Gamal Nkrumah Ilooked for the silver Artemisia judaica, the wormwood, or shih in Arabic in vain in Anna Boghiguian's kaleidoscopic floral tableau. Nor did I find the Hyphaene thebaica, the gingerbread tree, known in Egypt and Sudan as the Nubian doum palm, with its prehistorically psychedelic fibrous trunk and painstakingly polished honey-coloured fruit. Neither did I see the much-maligned nila, the ashen tinctoria, of Egyptian folklore. Instead I came across the rose, resplendent in multifarious shades of seductive blushing pinks, purplish red, ruby and carnelian. But were they dawn-tinted or bloodstained? Did they hint at primeval innocence, paradise, or the flushed, flesh-coloured counterfeits of contemporary frauds? I found not the nila, but its indigo-dye was there. And the bitter perfume of the aromatic shih filled the air as if warding off evil spirits, as did the priests of yesteryear with purifying incense. There was beauty, too. But such pulchritude as there was, was often enveloped like a belle in purdah, the niqab -- pitch black and preclusive. "Gardens of Egypt" the latest exhibition of the Egyptian artist of Armenian extraction, Anna Boghiguian, at the Safar Khan Gallery, Zamalek, Cairo, is profoundly thought-provoking. It was not meant to be pretty, even though flowers are the governing theme. Death lurks in the corner, and so does the afterlife. Garlands and wreaths are everywhere. Blossoms are beautiful, but they are also symbols of how transient life is. They flower, wilt and die. Still, the scents encapsulated in the dried petals live on long after the flower is gone. The ephemeral nature and delicate presence of the faint perfume of the dead flower parallels the very notion of immortality, of the belief, nay certitude in the afterlife. "I treated the roses in wax, imprinting them on soft sand for esoteric purposes. This wax technique lends the flower an eternal three dimensional form," explains Boghiguian nonchalantly. The entire exercise is eerily reminiscent of the mummifying techniques of the ancient Egyptians. The flower is embalmed in much the same fashion as the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead. Paradise is a paradox. It is rose-tinted, both pinkish and prudish, but it is not for the squeamish. Flowers are symbols of love and beauty and preserving them forever is akin to retaining the beautiful memory of our beloved ones, of keeping intact the essence of what is heavenly and enchanting in life. Even the wax technique, now her favoured medium, is symbolic as far as the artist is concerned. "Candles are objects of devotion as well as creators of the ambiance of intimacy," Boghiguian notes nonplussed. Candles are phallic figures in wax. They weep as they shrivel into nothingness. "Paradise is a garden, isn't it?" She asks rhetorically. The Arabic word for garden is geneina, or petite paradise," Boghiguian tells Al-Ahram Weekly. So garden, geneina, is derived from the Arabic root denoting paradise, ganna. Actually, the diminutive form, garden, was the primary inspiration for the very religiously recondite concept of paradise. Like candles, gardens furnish darkness -- the drollness of everyday life -- with light, with promise, often aromatically perfumed with the fragrance of fresh flowers. For Boghiguian, gardens are not so much a physical location as a state of mind. "The gardens of Egypt are not half as beautiful as the gardens of Lahore, Pakistan, or Kashmir. The gardens of Srinagar are paradisiacal. Equally celestial are the gardens of Sri Lanka. Those parks and botanical gardens are truly heavenly," Boghiguian pointedly explicates her idea of paradise. "The gardens of Egypt are poor imitations of European, or Mediterranean gardens -- the pine trees, cypresses and ornamental palms, the plants were imported from Europe by Europeans in the colonial days to re-create the façade of European aesthetics." "Today, they seem odd juxtapositions on the traditional Egyptian flora. I purposely peopled them with women in niqab to emphasise their contemporary Egyptian inconsistency and as a reminder of the continuing belief in the afterlife, in paradise for the pious." The incongruity of it all is mind-boggling. There is the allusion to a paradise lost. There is the tenacious holding on to the precious patches of greenery that metaphorically stand for the "real paradise" somewhere up there far beyond the miserable and mundane lives of mere mortals. Everyone wants a part of the greenery in Cairo. The city is dun-coloured and drab. Gardens provide shade from the merciless African sun. With few soft lines and scant lushness to its unforgiving landscape, the city and its inhabitants yearn for the afterlife -- simultaneously a paradise lost and a promised paradise. Boghiguian depicts the proverbial laid-back ambiance of the people of Egypt in her paintings of the gardens of the country. "The gardens and the people sitting in the gardens are in acrylic," she explains. "I deliberately used a conventional medium and method of painting to convey the ordinary and the mundane. Mortals dream of paradise in the gardens where they socialise and interact, but where they also meditate and contemplate the promise of paradise." The pollution is choking in Cairo. A predominantly buff city with no consistent architectural style, the artist like the city's residents takes refuge in gardens. But these are pitifully few and mainly restricted to the banks of the River Nile, and are at any rate closely associated with water -- fountains, ponds, and streams. Water, of course, is another emblem of the heavenly paradise. And, water is the element of purification par excellence. Well-watered gardens are the ideal setting for lovers, couples seek intimacy in the privacy of gardens. Adam and Eve were first conceived and then evicted from the garden, their private paradise. The first garden, paradise, was prohibitive in more sense of the word than one. So, too, are the contemporary gardens of Cairo. The most charming, heavenly gardens have become the exclusive domains of certain moneyed classes. The wretched of the earth are relegated to the least attractive gardens. "Boy in a Garden", acrylic on canvas, is symbolic of this banishment. His solitude is palpable. And, so is the loneliness of the women enveloped in the niqab. "A Day in a Garden" is equally grim, and forbidding. Boghiguian captures the pathos with genuine sensitivity. I contemplate this horticultural roundabout. The gardens of Cairo are peopled with loners who wish to escape away from the teaming crowds and traffic. "I do not paint a particular location. But rather, I try to capture a perception of what gardens imply. I have no particular place in mind. It is what comes to mind when one thinks of an Egyptian garden that interests me." It is here that true grit comes to the rescue. Take "Roses Moving in Space", for example. Oil, sand and petals on canvas -- what a mess and motley of mediums. Yet the rose petals are truly moving. What do flowers really want? Soil perhaps, and some water. What they really crave, like us humans, is a lot of loving care. Love counts. It does the same job as nature but more effectively. Pink stands for passion. And, red is a euphemism for romance. The pomegranate, both fruit and russet colour, symbolises seduction. Boghiguian's blossoms exude desire. They are creations of oil and sand on canvas masked in seductive colours. They thrive in this gravel. Colour is an outburst of passion. Paradise, the Quranic and Biblical heavenly garden, is the hope of escaping hell on earth. The netherworld is nigh, though. It, like paradise, is a "private matter in a private space" as Boghiguian beautifully puts it. Muck dots her landscapes. The compost and watering-can can be seen for what they are and understood. So can the cherubic statuettes and the grotesque gargoyles. But what about the unseen in "Roses for a Dream", or "Diana Threw an Arrow"? Shocking pink is both Cupid and a scream.
