Zarina Hashmi’s Nostalgic Decades

Zarina Hashmi was an Indian American artist who developed her unique style of artistic expression across a variety of media. Major themes of her work centre around the concepts of home, nostalgia and exile. An exquisite exhibition of her works ‘Zarina 1980-2000: The Nostalgic Decades’ is currently open at Akara Modern art gallery.

This 16th July marked the 86th birth anniversary of late Indian American artist and Printmaker Zarina Hashmi who was based in New York City. On that day, memories of her nostalgic works were rekindled by Google through a doodle created in her honor by New York based guest illustrator Tara Anand. 

Google Doodle on 16th July 2023

Zarina, born as Zarina Rashid in 1937, established herself as a prominent artist, engaging in drawing, printmaking, and sculpture. Her artistic expression was profoundly influenced by her identity as a woman of Indian origin, hailing from a Muslim background, and by her extensive journeys across various destinations. Drawing inspiration from Islamic architectural designs, she incorporated visual elements from Islamic religious ornamentation, particularly the harmonious geometric patterns. Zarina delved into the notion of home as a dynamic and abstract realm that surpasses physicality and geographical boundaries. Her artwork frequently encompassed symbols evoking concepts like movement, diaspora, and exile.

An exhibition of Zarina’s works titled ‘Zarina 1980-2000: The Nostalgic Decades’ currently open at the Akara Modern art gallery in Mumbai is a grand opportunity for art lovers to celebrate her artistic expression of her nostalgic memories from her early life in India.

‘Pools’ (1980)

Zarina was born in Aligarh where she spent most of her childhood. She graduated in mathematics, which reflects in the geometrical forms in her works several years later. She travelled across the globe before settling in New York. Along the way, she trained herself in woodblock printmaking in Bangkok, refined her skills in Tokyo, Paris and Bonn and learned paper making in Rajasthan.

‘Homes I Made A Life In Nine Lines’ (1997)

Her first major series of prints ‘Homes I made: A life in nine lines’ created in 1997 makes the central appearance in the current exhibition at Akara Modern. This is from the phase in Zarina’s artistic development marked by her works based on nostalgia. Following India’s partition in 1947, many of her close family members migrated to the newly formed Pakistan, leading to severance of the emotional bonds that Zarina had developed during childhood. The deep impact of this experience influenced her works to a great extent through the next three decades.

My House 1937-1958. (1994)

During the 1980’s, Zarina had a breakthrough in her artistic development when she combined her nostalgic memories with her interest in architecture. She further added another experimental dimension to this novel approach by using the unusual medium of cast paper to make monochromatic sculptures. She found her expressive style through such experiments while she made these sculptures, which included a garden flower from her nostalgia, row of neo-gothic arches, emblems of colonial cities, a grid reminiscent of the red sandstone in Fatehpur Sikri architecture which she adored and the so called ‘jalis’ of zenanas from the Mehrangarh Fort which was the place where she learned paper making. 

‘Phool’ (1989)

The later phase in Zarina’s artistic journey evolved when she started combining her printmaking skills with nostalgia. She embraced minimalism from influences of Kazimir Malevich and Carl Andre through the 1970’s. Adding a dimension of autobiographical narration to minimalism, she created her unique expressive style, that dominates her prints through the 1990’s.

‘Ghar (Home)’ (1988)

The artistic expression of Zarina’s nostalgia keeps hovering around her homes, beginning with her father’s house in Aligrah and then to various homes she lived in through her journey across globe. In effect, these works express a sense of loss and displacement, or getting uprooted. 

‘A House Of Many Rooms’ (1993)

Being a New Yorker, she was deeply affected by the attacks of the World Trade Centre in 2001 followed by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which led to the next chapter in her artistic development. She deep dived into the millennial geopolitical clashes emerging at the global scale of which she had a scarring background in her traumatic memories during the Indian partition.

‘Untitled’(2016)

The final couple of decades till her death in 2020 explored the next level of evolution in her artistic expression, wherein she used gold leaf in many works. This phase seems rather happier and spiritually evolved than the earlier ones.

Art lovers ought to experience this unique and evolving body of work by visiting the gallery personally. The exhibition is open for visitors till 26th August, 2023 at Akara Modern art gallery at 4/5 Churchill Chambers, 1st Floor, 32 Mereweather Road at Colaba in Mumbai.

For further information, refer to www.akaraart.com 

For a complete view of Zarina Hashmi’s life and art, refer to https://www.zarina.work/ 

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Vineel Bhurke