Painter pitches in to promote tropical beauty

JOHOR BARU:

A pensioner is spending his time painting the pitcher plant to promote the tropical beauty and preserve one of nature’s most fascinating flora.

For the past six years, former teacher Zakaria Adam has painted thousands of the carnivorous plant noted for trapping its prey with its fluid-laced cups, to “preserve” its beauty and draw parallels to human behaviour.

Better known as “Abah”, the 67-year-old, who taught art for 42 years in Maran, Pahang, said he chose to focus solely on the pitcher plant to celebrate the beauty of a plant that sat idly by and attracted its prey to be eaten.

“If we look at the plant itself, it just sits there minding its own business until a fly or insect comes into its mouth and then gets eaten.

“It is not unlike humans doing our own thing until other people come and disturb our peace – we will also react,” he said when met at the Johor Craft Festival here recently.

Abah noted that Malaysia was one of the countries in the world to be blessed with different kinds of the plant species.

“The common ones live in higher grounds, peat soils and bushes.

“I have also tried to paint the rarer types.

“What saddens me is that there has been little effort to preserve the habitat of these plants, especially with deforestation,” he said.

Abah hoped that people would be reminded of the beauty of nature every time they saw his paintings and why it was important to preserve these plants in the real world.

“You don’t want to end up looking at paintings, so we must act now to save the plant from being extinct.

“I want to instil that awareness apart from indulging in my love of nature, especially for this plant,” he said.

Some of his paintings took years to complete, depending on his time and mood, said Abah.

“The idea to paint can come slowly or suddenly. For example, even an A4-sized painting may take years to finish if we are not satisfied with the result,” he said.

His paintings are priced from RM50 to RM30,000 based on the size and theme.

“I do not like to put a price to my works because there have been times when those who love my art can’t afford it.

“So I give them discounts because if they love it, for sure they will keep it,” he said, adding his buyers included those from Germany, the United States and China.