STPI honours the late printmaker Zarina Hashmi with the gallery’s latest major exhibition, Zarina: Directions to My House. Better known as Zarina, the Aligarh-born artist was known for her minimalist yet striking geometric art, which features the recurring themes of home, displacement, borders, journey, and memory. Curated by Zarina’s former studio manager Sarah Burney, the showcase captures the printmaker’s deeply cross-cultural life. Displayed are 50 artworks that chronicle her nomadic journey across Bangkok, New Delhi, Paris, Bonn, Tokyo, Santa Cruz, and New York.
At the centre of the exhibition is a series of woodcut prints that explore the sense of belonging. Home is a Foreign Place (1999) features 36 minimalist woodblock prints that reference her childhood home and weave her mother tongue, Urdu, while These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness (2003) features abstract, aerial woodcut maps of cities scarred by conflict.
As the largest presentation of Zarina’s works in Southeast Asia, the exhibition also offers an intimate look at her seven-decade-long career and the meticulous process that defined her printmaking practice.
