Letters from Home Series

Born in Aligarh in 1937, Zarina's semi-abstract minimalist art raises questions concerning meaning, stability, endurance, mobility, and the ephemeral nature of the concept of home. She has widely exhibited in New York, Pakistan, India, and San Francisco and has been the recipient of many awards notably the New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship and the Alfred and Ester Gottlieb Foundation Grant. Her works are part of numerous highly esteemed collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, La Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris and will be included in a major upcoming exhibition of women artists from the 1970s at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Zarina explores the tenuous presence of geographical boundaries in her work. Playing upon their simultaneous ability to divide and unite. For Zarina, process, medium and concept are as integral to the success of an artwork as the final aesthetic. In this series of woodcuts, the artist demonstrates her skills at print-making, acquired while studying the craft in India, Thailand, Japan, in Paris, at the Atelier 17, and in Germany. Woodcuts have historically found their niche in protest art, particularly in the work of twentieth century German Expressionists and Mexican political artists, where the blunt use of solid black and white successfully conveys a frank and unflinching message. Zarina adopts this straightforward medium to depict these inklings of cartography, introducing attributes of Islamic art and architecture with her emphasis on pattern, geometry and inclusion of calligraphic elements.