Carving
Woodcut gave the line physical force. Zarina often removed the surrounding field so that a cut, fissure, road, or border emerged through absence.
Works
The work
Prints, portfolios, sculpture, and works on paper. Begin with selected works, then explore the works catalogue.
“I have been engaged in a conversation with myself for a long time, trying to understand how and why I got here.”
Best known as a printmaker, Zarina preferred to carve a line rather than draw it—to gouge a surface instead of building one up. She worked across woodcut, intaglio, lithography, and screenprint, often using a portfolio so that a place, word, or idea could gather meaning through repetition.
Architecture, Urdu, remembered homes, contested borders, and damaged geographies recur throughout the work. Beyond printmaking, she punctured, scratched, wove, folded, and sewed paper, and made sculptures in bronze, aluminium, steel, wood, tin, and paper pulp.
Selected portfolios
Across a sequence
Explore completed portfolio pages and catalogue records for works still being researched.
Rooms, memory, and the architecture of home
Explore portfolio →
Coastal light, Urdu poetry, and interior space
Explore portfolio →
Maps of memory, movement, and divided territory
Explore portfolio →
An etched sequence moves toward the boundary of land and water
Explore portfolio →
Plans, remembered dwellings, and the form of belonging
View catalogue records →
Cities transformed by distance, memory, and loss
View catalogue records →Correspondence, absence, and the material life of memory
Explore portfolio →Materials and methods
How the work carries meaning
Technique is never separate from memory, place, and language.
Paper
Handmade papers carry place through fiber, color, weight, and edge. They appear as printing surfaces, collage elements, cast objects, folded structures, and supports.
Series
Portfolios allowed a subject to unfold through variation. Homes, cities, words, routes, and signs accumulate meaning across a sequence.
Gold and darkness
Gold leaf, black ink, obsidian, and darkened paper turn light into both material and metaphor—at times luminous, at times unreachable.
Works catalogue
Works from the collection
Explore Zarina’s prints, portfolios, sculptures, and works on paper. Together, they reveal a practice shaped by home, memory, language, borders, and place.
Explore the works catalogue
Untitled
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Silent Night
Shavings of silver stick on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 14 × 13 in.
- Image
- 10.25 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage of BFK light paper printed with black ink and shavings of silver stick on Somerset Antique paper Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 22 × 15 in.
- Image
- 16.5 × 12 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage of BFK light paper printed with black ink, mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 22 × 15 in.
- Edition
- Unique
The Heart of Darkness
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf on Arches Black paper Diptych
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 28 × 7.5 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with Arches black paper on Somerset white paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 22 × 20 in.
- Edition
- Unique
The Blue Night
Collage with Arches black paper stained with Sumi ink and shavings of silver stick Mounted on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 19 × 13 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Shavings of silver stick on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 12 × 9 in.
- Image
- 8 × 6 in.
- Edition
- Unique
End of the Night
Shavings of gold stick on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 11.75 × 11 in.
- Image
- 7.75 × 7.75 in.
- Edition
- Unique
The Falling Sky II
Drawing with gold stick on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 22 × 17 in.
- Edition
- Unique
The Falling Sky I
Drawing with gold stick on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 15.5 × 17.75 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Shavings of gold stick on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2018
- Sheet
- 18.5 × 22 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Tasbih
Sheesham wood strung with steel cable
- Date
- 2018
- Components
- 99 units Each unit: 1.5 in.
- Overall dimensions
- Total length: 169 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Blue Night
Collage with strips of Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 30 × 9.25 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Heap of Ashes I
Crushed Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 12 × 11.25 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Silent Night
Collage with rubbings on Indian handmade paper Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 22 × 17 in.
- Image
- 16 × 12.75 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with strips of woodcuts printed in black, Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink, gold stick and 22-karat gold leaf on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 29 × 9.25 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with graphite rubbings on Indian handmade paper Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 14 × 10.5 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Running Lines I & II
Collage with woodcuts and BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 15 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with woodcuts printed in black on BFK light paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 8.5 × 15.25 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with strips of woodcuts printed in black and Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 30 × 8.75 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with woodcuts printed in black on BFK light paper Mounted on BFK light paper printed with black ink
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 9 × 15.25 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with pewter leaf on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 16 × 13 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Laying Bricks
Collage with pewter leaf on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 12 × 12 in.
- Edition
- EV 3
Untitled
Collage with Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with BFK light paper printed with black and red ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 13 × 13 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with BFK light paper printed with black and red ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 13 × 13 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Fence
Collage with BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Birds in Flight
Collage with Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Somerset Antique paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 11 × 13 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with woodcuts and BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 9.75 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Rain or Shine
Collage of etchings printed on Indian handmade paper Mounted on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Image
- 6.75 × 7 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 7 × 7.25 in.
- Image
- 3.75 × 4 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage of woodcut and printed black on Indian handmade paper Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 7 × 8 in.
- Image
- 3.75 × 5 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf and BFK light paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Circle in the Sand
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf and BFK light paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 13 × 13 in.
- Edition
- EV 3
Circle in the Sand
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf, gold pen and BFK light paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 13 × 13 in.
- Edition
- EV 3
Untitled
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf and BFK light paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
One More Dark Night
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf and BFK light paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Dark Night
Collage with 22-karat gold leaf and BFK light paper printed with black ink Mounted on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with gold stick rubbings on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with gold stick rubbings on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with graphite rubbings on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Untitled
Collage with graphite rubbings on Arches Cover buff paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
My Night Prayer
Collage with rubbings on Indian handmade paper stained with Sumi ink on Arches Black paper
- Date
- 2017
- Sheet
- 10 × 10 in.
- Edition
- Unique
Browse by title, date, material, or type to discover relationships across Zarina’s body of work.