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woodblocks and possibly read everything she could on printmaking. While in Paris in 1963-67 she studied printmaking with SW Hayter at the Atelier 17. During those four years she took a lot from him. Hayter gave her the confidence to trust her instinct. He told her, "You should draw with your elbow and not wrist." It was with him, that Zarina's creativity went abstract. After 1964 she never worked on her observation. She never felt the urge to do so. Her creativity became an outcome of her unconscious, though unconscious is also based on observations. She had no more interest in representational art. When Zarina's home moved to Delhi in 1968, she held her first exhibition titled 'A Room of My Own' at the same time establishing a graphic press to begin her profession as a print maker.

In 1976 at New York Zarina rediscovered herself. Her works took an architectural form. At that time she started philosophising her existence and lifestyle. Her work, like her person went through various stages of experimentation. In eighties she had worked on organic series painting trees, flowers, buds and fruits, but whatever she did it was with a scientific angle. For Zarina the most important work is her present home series. Home on wheels kept her wondering where was home. With a childlike innocence she says, "When in Delhi, I say, lets go 

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home, I mean New York and when I am in New York I feel as if all the places are foreign for me. It is like being caught between two languages. But I take New York as my home."

Zarina has the spirit of a gypsy. She wants to keep going on and on. She wants to have the least of possessions, one of the reasons she still is living in a rented place. Despite all the concepts, one has to have a centre and Zarina has made her self as her centre—a home.

Speaking about her present works, which she started in 90s, she says, "I am translating feelings into graphic forms. For the bare eye it is an effortless job but actually it is like walking on a tight rope." Her works are scientific, orderly and symmetrical. She calls symmetry a spiritual order. She does not create anything meaningless. When she makes a moon, she keeps in mind that every lunar

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day has a name after one of the ninety-nine names of Allah. Fro instance, the fourteenth lunar day in called Ta'ha. Her imagery has many sources. She cannot make conventional clouds, but the images she sees on the gird at the time of forecast on the screen. She creates 'char diwari', 'four walls'. She says that talking about four walls is easy but living in its confinements is a difficult experience. Moreover, what you do not experience, you don't have the right to paint that. She creates 'manzil' — 'destination', at the same time she says that who knows about destination. Does the lurking thought behind her images correspond to the poetry of the subcontinent? Destination  —  about which Ghalib had said that where was the next step of a longing, he experienced the desert of possibility as a mere foot print. For Zarina 'mitti' — earth', 'chand' — 'moon', 'badal'— 'cloud', 'dopeher' — 'afternoon', 'zaban' — 'language', etc are symbols, which are for everybody. They make the viewer think and communicate with. According to her this work has to be read visually rather than seen. Yes! The viewer wonders when he looks to Zarina's prints. If he erases the words beneath what remain are geometric and cosmic forms devoid of concepts; and if he takes away the forms, mere words carry no significance. Zarina has made use of words in a different sense on her boards. She has not used them as decorative elements but to convey meaning and her concepts at the same time providing scope to the viewer also to think what the word means for him. Zarina has fondness for reading and writing. For her words are as important as images, hence she has interlinked the two in her present prints.

Reading Zarina's works, one is prone to think that is it a failure of the visual art to seek help from words to convey the concepts, feeling and emotions of the artist, or the artist has chosen a wrong medium for his expressions. Zarina arrived in New York in 80s without friends or resources. For her survival she joined the Feminist Movement. The prejudices of the male dominated art scene in the West do not accept women artist of regular drawing and painting. They are, in an unsaid way, permitted to work on installations, sculpture, photography and concepts. With an exception of a few, women artists have restricted their expression to the said fields for their livelihood. Perhaps, Zarina also faced the same situation while living in a home away from home.