Country

Zarina Hashmi studied wood block printing in Japan in 1974, not merely learning the medium but also absorbing the monochromatic, minimalist Zen aesthetics of the region. Her favourite medium remained paper, which for her was like skin. ‘It can be stained, pierced and moulded and it still has the capability of breathing and aging. It has a fragility and resilience that lasts through time.’ She was drawn to different kinds of hand-made paper, often highlighting these through Chine-collé. Long a maker of maps and a marker of borders, many of her works are rendered almost like grids governed by Sufi thought and Zen practice. There is also extensive use of both Urdu poetry and script in her work; here, in this work, an Urdu word can be seen inscribed at the bottom. This was a sort of paying homage to the artist’s mother tongue.