Zarina (1937-2020, Aligarh)
Trained at Atelier 17 Studio in Paris, where Zarina apprenticed with Stanley William Hytner and Toshi Yoshida in Tokyo ona Japan Foundation Fellowship. She has had solo exhibitions in India, North America, France, China, Singapore, Pakistan, Norway among others. Zarina taught at Bennington College, Cornell University and University of California. She lived in New York.
The peripatetic nature of her life was the second biggest influence in her work, after Partition, both informing a lifelong quest for home, a recurrent theme in her paintings and prints. Through a minimalist geometric language, calligraphy and restricted palette Zarina engaged with the poetics of space, reimagining cartographical studies, political borders and the condition of rootlessness.
The Delhi series of woodcut prints show the river Yamuna fashioned as a geographical border. Having witnessed the aftermath of partition in the city, she imagines the river, once the subject of great art, poetry and imagination, became a metaphor for stagnant civilisations.