Untitled

Some time in the 1970s, Zarina Hashmi became interested with texture, embossing, relief and the use of thread in her work, almost as though she wanted to stitch her unspooling life back into some coherence. Executed almost entirely in white, they brought together many of the upheavals her life was undergoing—on an emotional vortex that was spinning out of control with the artist still intent on knotting it as a measure of control. These works reflect both an inner turmoil as well as quietude; an attempt to hold back something that she knew was spent; a past and a present. They are also a precursor to her interest in sculptures that she would undertake later in the same decade, beginning with paper before moving on to other materials, but returning to cast paper as her medium of choice.