zarina hashmi

Born in Aligarh, Zarina Hashmi, studied Print Making in Toshi Yoshida studio, Japan, and has been taught at Bennington College Cornell University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hashmi has been a Recipient of the NYFA Fellowship in Print Making, Drawing & Artists Books in 1985 and 1990.She was awarded the Residencies at Art Omi, New York and at the Women's Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York and has worked with S. W. Hayter and Krishna Reddy at Atelier 17 in Paris and Tokyo.

Zarina tries to communicate her personal perspectives through the Medium of cartography, a medium previously used by German, Chinese and Mexican artists in the 1920s and 1930s to bring their message of protest to a wider audience.  Her collection 'Cities 2003' includes maps showing the cities Grozny, Sarajevo,Srebrenica, Beirut, Jenin, Baghdad, Kabul, Ahmedabad and New York etc that are settlements that have been in  coercion. Through her woodcut’s stark statements, she tries to portray the forces of hatred and covetousness through the depiction of skeletal remains on mourning veil presented as broken and jagged lines, like the shards of glass, that are far from an organized existence  that symbolizes as if, the law of war becomes identical to the law of the jungle, besieging the cultural vitality.

Zarina has spoken of the importance of music and poetry in her art. Space in Zarina’s art, acts as silence in musical compositions. It is the counterpart to the pause, providing time for reflection.  In her minimalist approach   her lines, both delicate and dense, form abstract compositions that reflect her reality. Poetry also enhances Zarina’s art, as does calligraphy, which has long been indication of intellectual and aesthetic achievement in the Islamic world.

She has published her work and articles in various books such as “Journeys: Heroes, Pilgrims, Explores”, “Fresh Talk / Daring Gazes”,  “Women Artists of Color”, “20^th Century Artists in the America and “Talking Visions: Multicultural Feminism in the Age of Globalization”.

Zarina is a much-traveled Artist. Her work is represented in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Victoria and Albert Museum and the Bibliotheque Nationalie. Paris, Amman World Bank and Jordan Library of Congress, Washington, D.C; Museum of Fine Art, Bhopal and India-Japan Foundation, Tokyo and many other important collections.