Zarina: Paper Like Skin

About this book

Tracing the artists career in full from the early 1960s to the present this book offers the first retrospective of the Indian-born American artist Zarina. Zarina Hashmis main working medium is paper which she employs in woodcuts etchings drawings rubbings and casts made from paper pulp. Minimal yet rich in associations her abstract compositions are inextricably linked to her life and to the themes of dispossession and exile that have marked it. The concept of homewhether personal geographical national spiritual or familialresonates throughout Zarinas work. Appearing in different guises throughout her oeuvre her distinctive line is the unifying element of her compositions like an umbilical cord that ties her to this world regardless of where she is. This generously illustrated volume places Zarinas work within a tradition of the use and fabrication of paper on the Indian Subcontinent while also examining the themes of dispossession and exile that are subtly yet poignantly raised by her art.