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Zarinas New Graphics
by Our Art Critic

Zarina's recent graphics on view at Gallery Chanakya bring forth all the sensitivity, meticulousness and serious intent that we have come to associate with her work, and they are as enticing as ever. There is a sense of composure and calm in her work which holds one's attention and tempts one into a state of reflection. But she does more with her new woodprints, which have now acquired a new dimension - of positive construction of spatial contrast and relief: The Pentagonal Construction (9), The Cage (3) The "Rope" and Window Frame (4). Even in works, such as prints - 2 and 8 which are close to her earlier work the grains are scooped and softened to a greater extent to present this interplay of the graven surface and the unprinted white streaks. This linear effect is carried to the point of maximum possibility in a work like No. 6 where the print is taken of a sheet of closely arranged sticks and strips balanced to produce a distinctive sense of rhythm and movement. On view till September 30 - daily between 10:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Zatina's prints

What you bring away from Zarina's latest prints at Chanakya Gallery is what you brought away from her earlier presentations: an instantaneous monolithic feel of unity, a stone-cut simplicity-a work doing completely without ornament and colour. For her, the controlled classic dramatics of lines seems to be enough. But in these new, sometimes larger works of black pitted against white and of no intermediates, the starkness gets starker. Zarina pursues her rationality with a single-mindedness though not without variations. If, for instance, No. 6 is the falling rain of quick lines, No. 4 is a thatch, as if, of sharp straws. With No. 8 the lines thicken to bars, and with No. 2 there are the geologic stratas piled up with fusional pressures. No. 1 is blunt architectural, and No. 9 a plumber's well-laid lines, No. 7 is a plaiting of bands; No. 3 slab-fence walls like those seen in Rajasthan; No. II, stacked volumes, as if, and there are the numerous angles. Here, therefore, is vitality, with the barest of means; a cutting away of the subjective, confusions and moods and development of the athletin form.

The Hindustan Times
Mon Sept 21, 1970?


By Our Art Critic
From the simple primary wooden texture, Zarina's graphic art now turn to an exploration of the three-dimensional, space and opens up broad, white areas of print surface.
Zarina's  recent graphics, now on view at Gallery Chanakya, Yashwant Place, though unchanged in their textural quality, are now aware of the negative space. And it is this negative space (in this context, the untinted surface) that saves the texture from the growing directional monotony (horizontal-vertical-diametrical) and gives it the third dimension of depth. This is what makes her recent prints different from the prints exhibited last fall. 
Print No. 3, for instance, looking like a high-plank fencing, encloses three-dimensional space, while the white gaps become mobile, joining the enclosed with the open white outside. But the verticality of the wooden texture is strictly maintained. In No. 9, only a hint of a textural composition far down at the right seems to stir up the open white into a dialogue. One cannot miss that the negative space looks enormous and mobile because of its successful contact with the composed mass. 
But. sober in colouration and austere in composition, Zarina's prints seem to exist like mathematical symbols in a soundless world of emotional vacuum. The wooden texture (so characteristic of Zarina) now reduced to a mute, dessicated vestige of the objective world, is a constant quantity which is used in purely special equations. Her impeccable craftsmanship and almost clinical, cold neatness of print-making have added to the above effect. 
On view till September 30. 

[[left margin]] The Times of India, Sept 20, 1970 [[/left margin]]

Refreshing graphic composition
By Our Art Critic
NEW DELHI, September 19: Zarina is an artist of distinction. She has got a good grounding in the graphic arts, having studied at the world famous studio, Atlier [[Atelier]] 17' Paris, and St. Martin's School, London. She has been holding one-man shows in Delhi every year since 1968, and every time she has added to her reputation as a sincere worker. 
This year she is having an exhibition of her prints at Gallery Chanakya. The exhibits are all woodcuts and are 12 in number. [[picture]] Of all the print processes, woodcuts constitute the oldest graphic art and have special and perennial possibilities in the matter of aesthetic expression. In other graphic arts such as screenprints, etchings and aquatints, the technical side is often obtrusive. Here in this medium it is possible to bring out expressive quality of designs without getting too much lost in the quest for technical excellence.
Zarina's exhibits bear that out. Her compositions have the refreshing qualities of simplicity, purity, and integrity. There are no fireworks or loud outburs [[outbursts]]. The artist seems to believe in the quietness and serenity of abstract art. And the woodcuts serve her purpose beautifully. They bring out the characteristics of her compositions in a remarkable manner through the aesthetic rhythms created by the black and white formations in masses or lines. She is at her best in exhibits Nos. 3, 5. 6 and 8. Nos. 3 and 5 are fascinating in the organisation [[organization]] of their designs.
The exhibition will remain open until September 30 between 10-30a.m. and 7-30p.m.