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NAME OF PUBLICATION: BUSINESS STANDERED PLACE OF PUBLICATION: NEW DELHI DATE OF PUBLICATION: 29 JAN 2000 Markers of an artist's life Evocative symbols from Zarina home make for an engrossing story [[image]] "Home is a Foreign Place, Zarina's current show in the capital is intriguingly entitled. In one of the finest shows this season so far, printmaker Zarina takes stock of her life – "It is my age to do so," she declares, at 62. Born in Aligarh, the New York-based Zarina assembles a highly formal language, in conjunction with a single Urdu word, to reconstruct spaces which are significant as markers of her life, in a specific, personal context. Her woodcuts then become as much about seeing the image, as about reading, almost chanting the word calligraphically inscribed below. Ghar, chakaukhat, dopaharr..reciting becomes part of walking along the flat white walls of the gallery. Any viewer would do well to ignore the others around, and speak out each work. Architectural spaces and features, houses, the changing lights through a day, sounds heard – all these are neatly ordered as a well-planned structure, using a formal visual vocabulary. The works, displayed in series of six, start becoming an engrossing, through open-ended story, each frame bound to the other, not a sequel as much as simultaneous happenings, moments parallel to each other. Zarina tries to unflinchingly transcribe this multi-layered tie-space series into stark, minimal black and Ivory woodcuts. Her own style, she says, comes to some extent from Malevich, Rothko, Pit Mondrain: "These are my gurus, in the sense that I relate to them and have learned from them," she acknowledges. At one level, this show is about controlling the turns life takes, and decisions which are pre-decided. Zarina is acutely aware of how little control individuals have over their lives. Through articulating this 'autobiography,' (as she has described it) she is able to largely decide what is presented and how. She, therefore, allows herself to take control of this representation, an autonomy exercised through memory. Nostalgia is absent. This is a strict, highly disciplined exercise. That architecture is important to her is many diverse waves, is obvious; Ghar, darwaza, aangan, chaukhat were all a part of her house, and significantly, all of them are used to represent her life in Aligarh. Look out for the manner in which symbols are present, some very evocative: dopahar (afternoon) is an image with dark, thick lines, of a ceiling [[?far from still. most of us, even as big-city urban Indians still nurse a memory of a lazy summer afternoon under a grudgingly moving fan. The ability to capture in so nuancial a way, the essence of several years of afternoon, is spectacular. Zarina dwells largely on her home because to her, it is particularly important. "I was pre-TV and pre-going out and in Aligarh, [[image] [[image]] Moon (top) and Home (bottom): woodcuts by Zarina we stayed at home", she explains. In her catalogue, she writes: "Within these four walls my world revolved. Here I looked at the sky, imagined the earth, closed my eyes to the scorching sun and counted the stages of the moon." It is not surprising, therefore individually, but as a series of six. Each series tells a story from what Zarina remembers, and buying them individually, if that were at all possible, would fracture the narrative. At Rs 40, 000 for a single series, these are superb works which will not be easily seen or available again. Zarina's last solo show, at Art Heritage, was in 1986. It has taken her 14 years to show again, this time with work whose quality is not always seen in the Indian art world. At Gallery Espace, 16 Community Centre, New Friends Colony. New Delhi. Phone: 6830499,6922947 Fax: 6831851,6848235 Email: g_espace@vsni.com Website: www.galleryespace.com
