Zarina
The work of Zarina is defined by her adherence to the personal and the essential. An early interest in architecture and mathematics is reflected in her use of geometry and her emphasis on structural purity. While her work tends towards minimalism, its starkness is tempered by its texture and materiality. Her art poignantly chronicles her life and recurring themes include home, displacement, borders, journey and memory.
Best known as a printmaker, Zarina prefers to carve instead of draw the line, to gouge the surface rather than build it up. She has used various mediums of printmaking including intaglio, woodblocks, lithography, and silkscreen, and she frequently creates series of several prints in order to reference a multiplicity of locales or concepts. For example, her seminal work Home is a Foreign Place consists of 36 woodblock prints, each of which represents a particular memory of home. Each subject is inscribed in Urdu beneath the print to signify the vital role language plays in her work, as well as to pay homage to a mother tongue in decline. Other works explore geographical borders and contested terrains, particularly those areas which are scarred from political conflict. She has long been interested in the material possibilities …
The work of Zarina is defined by her adherence to the personal and the essential. An early interest in architecture and mathematics is reflected in her use of geometry and her emphasis on structural purity. While her work tends towards minimalism, its starkness is tempered by its texture and materiality. Her art poignantly chronicles her life and recurring themes include home, displacement, borders, journey and memory.
Best known as a printmaker, Zarina prefers to carve instead of draw the line, to gouge the surface rather than build it up. She has used various mediums of printmaking including intaglio, woodblocks, lithography, and silkscreen, and she frequently creates series of several prints in order to reference a multiplicity of locales or concepts. For example, her seminal work Home is a Foreign Place consists of 36 woodblock prints, each of which represents a particular memory of home. Each subject is inscribed in Urdu beneath the print to signify the vital role language plays in her work, as well as to pay homage to a mother tongue in decline. Other works explore geographical borders and contested terrains, particularly those areas which are scarred from political conflict. She has long been interested in the material possibilities of paper and in addition to printing on it, she has created works which entail puncturing, scratching, weaving and sewing on paper.
She has had solo exhibitions at numerous venues internationally including representing India at the 2011 Venice Biennale, and her retrospective at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, the Guggenheim in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at institutions such as MOCA in Los Angeles, Asia Society in New York, Queens Museum of Art in New York, Williams College Museum of Arts, and Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Courtesy of Luhring Augustine
Tate Modern, London, UK
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Luhring Augustine, New York, NY