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拍品專文
I often wonder what my life would have been like had I never left my house of four walls in India [...] I do not feel at home anywhere, but the idea of home follows me wherever I go. In dreams and on sleepless nights, the fragrance of the garden, image of the sky, and sound of language returns. I go back to the roads I have crossed many times. They are my companions and my solace.
– Zarina
Born in Aligarh in 1937, a decade before the partition of the Indian Subcontinent, Zarina's life was shaped by movement across borders and cultures. After studying mathematics, she trained in woodblock printmaking in Japan and Bangkok and intaglio printmaking with S.W. Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris. Going on to live and work across Bangkok, Delhi, Tokyo, Paris and New York, these experiences informed an artistic practice deeply engaged with questions of home, belonging and displacement. In works that often allude to borders, migration and memory, Zarina explored not only movement between physical locations but also the emotional and cultural dislocations that accompany such journeys. Most comfortable with printmaking and sculpting, the artist turned to paper as the primary medium to express these concerns.
“Paper, with its extraordinary range of tones and textures, forms the core of Zarina's continually evolving and distinctly independent oeuvre. With it she expresses the cultural diversity that marks her persona and the notions of boundary, loss, displacement and home that underlie her abstract vocabulary” (A. Pesenti, Paper Like Skin, Los Angeles, 2012, p. 30). The selection of lots by Zarina presented in this catalogue span more than three decades and demonstrate the remarkable range of techniques through which the artist explored the possibilities of paper, from silkscreen and woodcut prints to collage, calligraphy, perforations and cast paper pulp.
Lot 558 is the earliest work in this group. Executed in 1972, it is an elegant example of Zarina's geometric language. In this silkscreen composition, two sharply defined black planes sit against the exposed paper. With extraordinary restraint, Zarina uses only black ink and the untouched paper to create a compelling sense of spatial division and tension. The angular form dividing the composition suggests a boundary or threshold without resolving into a specific place, allowing the abstract forms to evoke a sense of space. Through the careful balance of form and absence, Untitled demonstrates Zarina's ability to evoke a sense of boundary, distance and separation without direct representation.
Lots 555 and 556, made in the late 1970s, are laminated sheets of paper pierced with a sewing needle, marking an increasingly tactile investigation of the medium. Here the act of image creation no longer consists of mark-making on a surface but of removing material from it. Hundreds of minute perforations puncture the laminated paper, producing compositions that function simultaneously as drawing, relief and sculpture. Minimal yet intensely worked, the sheets bear the traces of the artist's hand and the physical process of their making. The perforations transform the paper from a passive support into an active, tactile surface, making the physical process of their creation integral to the composition and rendering the material properties of paper inseparable from the image itself.
By the 1980s, Zarina was pushing her relationship with paper beyond the picture plane. Lot 557, Spaces to Hide, executed in 1980, explores Zarina’s innovative use of paper pulp as a sculptural medium. She began “pouring paper slurry as if it were molten metal into deep relief moulds” (R. Kimbril, Zarina: Paper Houses, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2007, p. 4), transforming a traditionally fragile material into one capable of remarkable physical presence. The title emerged from the artist’s search for a place to live in New York. The ads for ‘Spaces to Rent’ became ‘Spaces to Hide’, reflecting the artist’s desire for “a place to hide a space of my [her] own” (Artist statement, Zarina: Paper Houses, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2007, p. 10). The small triangular niches embedded in the work suggest abstracted, house-like shapes. This recurring motif of home, familiar from the geometric vocabulary of her earlier prints, is translated here into sculptural form, while the textured surface and irregular edges retain the intimacy of handmade paper. Through works like this one, Zarina fundamentally alters her viewer’s encounter with paper, giving a medium conventionally associated with flatness and fragility an unexpected three-dimensional monumentality.
Lot 560, Rani’s Garden (1986) revisits a familiar visual language through Zarina’s distinctive material vocabulary. The title itself resonates with the artist's recollection of the garden that returned to her in dreams and sleepless nights. Combining woodcut, handmade paper and gold leaf, the work recalls aspects of Mughal miniature painting while remaining distinct in its execution. The decorative border framing the flower and the artist’s use of gold leaf evoke the miniature painting tradition, yet the expressive irregularities of the printed surface and the restricted palette locate the work within Zarina’s own artistic language. The carved grain of the woodblock replaces the delicate brushwork associated with miniature painting, foregrounding the physical process of making. The flower itself becomes stylized, almost geometric rather than naturalistic. The result is a distinctive meeting of historical reference and material experimentation, in which a visual language long familiar to the artist is reimagined through the tactile processes of woodcut and handmade paper.
Executed in 2002, lot 554, Migration, is constructed from handmade paper. The work is composed of small raised paper mounds precisely arranged across a warm, earth-toned surface. The denser clusters at the upper left and lower right of the work are connected by more dispersed formations, creating a carefully balanced composition that alternates between concentration and dispersion. The arrangement guides the eye across the surface, creating a sense of movement. Zarina embeds the theme of migration into the organization of the work itself, using the shifting relationships between the clusters of paper to evoke movement across space and distance.
Reflecting on works concerned with borders and movement, Zarina explained that she was interested not only in “borders on the map but also the barriers one crosses in life, the risks one takes in crossing over to new destinies” (Artist statement, Zarina: Paper Houses, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2007, p. 15). The clustered and dispersed paper mounds suggest both connection and separation, allowing migration to be experienced through the rhythms and relationships established across the sheet.
If lot 554 constructs a collage using fragments of paper, lot 559 constructs one with language. Executed in 2006, Allah 777 Times repeats the word 'Allah' across the page, transforming script into a visual pattern. Rather than functioning as written language, the repeated calligraphic forms coalesce into a rhythmic, almost meditative composition. As Zarina observed, “For me calligraphy is a higher form of expression than representation” (Artist statement, Ibid., New Delhi, 2007, p. 13). In this work, language is not used to describe an image but to become one. Through repetition, a single word generates an expansive and contemplative composition, transforming the sheet into a surface where writing becomes visual form.
Spanning silkscreen, woodcut, collage, calligraphy, perforations and cast paper, this group of lots by Zarina reveals the varied ways in which the artist expanded the possibilities of paper, employing it as a medium through which complex themes could be explored. Yet, the diversity of these approaches is matched by a striking consistency of vision. Whether divided by a line, assembled from fragments, filled with sacred script or pierced by hundreds of tiny perforations, Zarina's paper is never merely a support. It is a means through which she gave tangible form to movement, separation, memory and belonging. These lots capture the extraordinary breadth of Zarina’s practice and the material language that enabled her to transform paper into a vehicle for both formal invention and deeply personal expression.
– Zarina
Born in Aligarh in 1937, a decade before the partition of the Indian Subcontinent, Zarina's life was shaped by movement across borders and cultures. After studying mathematics, she trained in woodblock printmaking in Japan and Bangkok and intaglio printmaking with S.W. Hayter at Atelier 17 in Paris. Going on to live and work across Bangkok, Delhi, Tokyo, Paris and New York, these experiences informed an artistic practice deeply engaged with questions of home, belonging and displacement. In works that often allude to borders, migration and memory, Zarina explored not only movement between physical locations but also the emotional and cultural dislocations that accompany such journeys. Most comfortable with printmaking and sculpting, the artist turned to paper as the primary medium to express these concerns.
“Paper, with its extraordinary range of tones and textures, forms the core of Zarina's continually evolving and distinctly independent oeuvre. With it she expresses the cultural diversity that marks her persona and the notions of boundary, loss, displacement and home that underlie her abstract vocabulary” (A. Pesenti, Paper Like Skin, Los Angeles, 2012, p. 30). The selection of lots by Zarina presented in this catalogue span more than three decades and demonstrate the remarkable range of techniques through which the artist explored the possibilities of paper, from silkscreen and woodcut prints to collage, calligraphy, perforations and cast paper pulp.
Lot 558 is the earliest work in this group. Executed in 1972, it is an elegant example of Zarina's geometric language. In this silkscreen composition, two sharply defined black planes sit against the exposed paper. With extraordinary restraint, Zarina uses only black ink and the untouched paper to create a compelling sense of spatial division and tension. The angular form dividing the composition suggests a boundary or threshold without resolving into a specific place, allowing the abstract forms to evoke a sense of space. Through the careful balance of form and absence, Untitled demonstrates Zarina's ability to evoke a sense of boundary, distance and separation without direct representation.
Lots 555 and 556, made in the late 1970s, are laminated sheets of paper pierced with a sewing needle, marking an increasingly tactile investigation of the medium. Here the act of image creation no longer consists of mark-making on a surface but of removing material from it. Hundreds of minute perforations puncture the laminated paper, producing compositions that function simultaneously as drawing, relief and sculpture. Minimal yet intensely worked, the sheets bear the traces of the artist's hand and the physical process of their making. The perforations transform the paper from a passive support into an active, tactile surface, making the physical process of their creation integral to the composition and rendering the material properties of paper inseparable from the image itself.
By the 1980s, Zarina was pushing her relationship with paper beyond the picture plane. Lot 557, Spaces to Hide, executed in 1980, explores Zarina’s innovative use of paper pulp as a sculptural medium. She began “pouring paper slurry as if it were molten metal into deep relief moulds” (R. Kimbril, Zarina: Paper Houses, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2007, p. 4), transforming a traditionally fragile material into one capable of remarkable physical presence. The title emerged from the artist’s search for a place to live in New York. The ads for ‘Spaces to Rent’ became ‘Spaces to Hide’, reflecting the artist’s desire for “a place to hide a space of my [her] own” (Artist statement, Zarina: Paper Houses, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2007, p. 10). The small triangular niches embedded in the work suggest abstracted, house-like shapes. This recurring motif of home, familiar from the geometric vocabulary of her earlier prints, is translated here into sculptural form, while the textured surface and irregular edges retain the intimacy of handmade paper. Through works like this one, Zarina fundamentally alters her viewer’s encounter with paper, giving a medium conventionally associated with flatness and fragility an unexpected three-dimensional monumentality.
Lot 560, Rani’s Garden (1986) revisits a familiar visual language through Zarina’s distinctive material vocabulary. The title itself resonates with the artist's recollection of the garden that returned to her in dreams and sleepless nights. Combining woodcut, handmade paper and gold leaf, the work recalls aspects of Mughal miniature painting while remaining distinct in its execution. The decorative border framing the flower and the artist’s use of gold leaf evoke the miniature painting tradition, yet the expressive irregularities of the printed surface and the restricted palette locate the work within Zarina’s own artistic language. The carved grain of the woodblock replaces the delicate brushwork associated with miniature painting, foregrounding the physical process of making. The flower itself becomes stylized, almost geometric rather than naturalistic. The result is a distinctive meeting of historical reference and material experimentation, in which a visual language long familiar to the artist is reimagined through the tactile processes of woodcut and handmade paper.
Executed in 2002, lot 554, Migration, is constructed from handmade paper. The work is composed of small raised paper mounds precisely arranged across a warm, earth-toned surface. The denser clusters at the upper left and lower right of the work are connected by more dispersed formations, creating a carefully balanced composition that alternates between concentration and dispersion. The arrangement guides the eye across the surface, creating a sense of movement. Zarina embeds the theme of migration into the organization of the work itself, using the shifting relationships between the clusters of paper to evoke movement across space and distance.
Reflecting on works concerned with borders and movement, Zarina explained that she was interested not only in “borders on the map but also the barriers one crosses in life, the risks one takes in crossing over to new destinies” (Artist statement, Zarina: Paper Houses, exhibition catalogue, New Delhi, 2007, p. 15). The clustered and dispersed paper mounds suggest both connection and separation, allowing migration to be experienced through the rhythms and relationships established across the sheet.
If lot 554 constructs a collage using fragments of paper, lot 559 constructs one with language. Executed in 2006, Allah 777 Times repeats the word 'Allah' across the page, transforming script into a visual pattern. Rather than functioning as written language, the repeated calligraphic forms coalesce into a rhythmic, almost meditative composition. As Zarina observed, “For me calligraphy is a higher form of expression than representation” (Artist statement, Ibid., New Delhi, 2007, p. 13). In this work, language is not used to describe an image but to become one. Through repetition, a single word generates an expansive and contemplative composition, transforming the sheet into a surface where writing becomes visual form.
Spanning silkscreen, woodcut, collage, calligraphy, perforations and cast paper, this group of lots by Zarina reveals the varied ways in which the artist expanded the possibilities of paper, employing it as a medium through which complex themes could be explored. Yet, the diversity of these approaches is matched by a striking consistency of vision. Whether divided by a line, assembled from fragments, filled with sacred script or pierced by hundreds of tiny perforations, Zarina's paper is never merely a support. It is a means through which she gave tangible form to movement, separation, memory and belonging. These lots capture the extraordinary breadth of Zarina’s practice and the material language that enabled her to transform paper into a vehicle for both formal invention and deeply personal expression.