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By Vanessa Garcia

Saqib Mughal’s paintings are full of duality – beginnings and endings; prospects and diminished hopes; power and pain. His paintings are doors and windows onto the world, doors that hold life behind them and doors that close life off. These doors, like Saqib’s butterflies, fish, birds, and other mythical creatures, are both physically and figuratively present in his work, giving way to a rich line of interpretation.

In Saqib’s work, earth tones give way to blazing reds, in the same way that blank walls will brush into a door, jutting out in low relief – small doors that Saqib has pasted onto his canvases. Take Curiosity, one of Saqib’s paintings.

At the same time, however, though the paintings may have their roots in Pakistan, they are universal, as all good art must be. Anyone looking upon one of Saqib’s canvases can take what they will from it. Butterflies and birds, those winged creatures, can unfold into a number of meanings to do with change, splendor, freedom, and growth. The texture  too can illicit feelings of depth. These are thoroughly worked backdrops that give the impression of soil and jagged surface, sometimes mineral-rich, sometimes barren.