Tayyeba Aziz, an award-winning artist, was born in the walled city of Peshawar, the fabled city of flowers and gardens. Her paintings embody the fragrance and colours of a 5,000-year-old heritage city – which remains a shared memory for many old residents of Peshawar.
Her canvas has traversed through the idyllic period while growing up in the culturally and aesthetically vibrant and peaceful walled city during the early 1960s, the progressive 1970s and turbulent 1980s and 1990s, and finally the violence and destruction it endured during the last decade. The landscapes and portraits, particularly the flowers in her recent work, remind us of the realism rarely followed in the contemporary art scene.
“Tayyeba’s lines are very delicate and intricate. Her style is inspired by Impressionist period masters. Water colours are a very difficult art form, needing a lot of mastery, finesse and control,” says Jahanzeb Malik, a renowned artist who specialises in mixed media and modern techniques. However, Tayyeba explains “Being a staunch colourist, I try to create compositions that please the eye and enhance colours which show. My watercolours are done in a loose manner, though it all needs a lot of control because of fluidity. Most of my recent work is in negative painting technique.”
She elaborates this technique further: “I begin with the first wash (the background of each painting), laying down the subtitle values which is the bone of a painting. I then gradually paint around the positive areas and keep the paintings layers of dark in a negative manner. The darkest darks determine the focal point and lead the eye to travel around the format. My paintings are the deep expression of my emotions”. 
Looking at her latest floral art evokes a surreal image, which is multilayered or multidimensional.
“I've painted in both the representative (realism) and abstract genres. The positive energy that arises while painting is what touches the viewer. It's all about sharing the joy with the general public and art buffs, who interpret art through the medium on display. I've painted in oils and acrylics, but watercolour is my first love and my forte. Being a quick (but a tad difficult) medium, it suits my spontaneous nature. Besides, it takes small space, no mess, no odour and is easy to carry,” Tayyeba explains.
Where does the inspiration to paint nature and particularly flowers come from?
“During my father's hotel business in Murree, in early years as siblings, we were admitted as boarders in the Murree Convent School. My letters, as a six- or seven-year-old, preserved by my father, explain my fascination with nature, especially flowers. All letters show drawings in the empty spaces. Murree in those days was an idyllic garden full of assorted flowers...later becoming my life long nostalgia which also serves as an inspiration from those early days.”
Peshawar has no art gallery
Tayyeba Aziz, as a renowned name in art circles, has been going from pillar to post to hold her painting exhibitions. Peshawar, once indeed the ‘city of flowers’ with the glorious history of the Gandhara civilisation, and birthplace of artists and poets like Ahmad Faraz, Ghani Khan, Mohsin Ahsan, Daud Kamal, Gulgee and so many others; not to name the early stalwarts of Indian cinema who trace their ancestry to the walled city, it is unbelievable for outsiders that it has no art gallery or an exhibition hall for artists to display their work. It is not a wonder, then, that local and international exhibitions are unheard of, and artists have to travel to Islamabad and Karachi to exhibit their art.
On the recent art in Peshawar Archives Museum in November 2023
“My floral exhibition is a symbol of the bygone city of flowers. It is also a tribute to the strength and resilience of my people of KP, who stood strong with the tenacity to brave all kinds of hardships that come their way,” she says. “Flowers, being my first love and inspiration, the urgency in execution can be felt in my present works...for the thought that I have little time left! They are more spontaneous with no planned drawings. The colours are vibrant and not strong.”
Response to human tragedies
Tayyeba’s most profound work was titled “Drapes and Dreams,” an expression of tattered, mutilated rags in various shades of crimson and reds, done in the in the aftermath of the APS tragedy and mass killings that were a daily routine of Peshawar, as many people suffered from mental and emotional disorders. “Being hypersensitive to my surroundings, this inspired a series of sombre and gloomy paintings when my dear city of flowers was ruthlessly bombed and the limbs and bodies of innocents were scattered on the streets,” she recalls with deep anguish.
Tayyeba’s latest exhibit is also a tribute to the besieged people of Gaza, suffering genocide by a ruthless Zionist occupation, which the world seems to have totally forgotten. This is a small gesture of solidarity to the cause of Palestine, that the world chooses to forget.
“Being always sensitive to the suffering of the Palestinians, I feel it has now become a part of my soul. If only I could be there with them to help the unfortunate souls in Gaza,” she laments. Half of the sale money from her latest exhibition was donated to a charity for victims of the Gaza tragedy!”