Delhi II

"Delhi II' is part of a series of three works by Zarina. It depicts old Delhi from above and was inspired by a top-down illustration of Delhi which appeared in the London Illustrated News in 1858 titled - ‘The City of Delhi Before the Siege’. 'Delhi II' is a woodcut print with black ink on handmade paper pasted on cartridge paper.

The pains of displacement, migration, and the search for home are central themes in most of the artist's work. These are informed by her own experiences. She was witness to India’s violent partition at a young age. Nearly a decade following this, all of her family relocated to Pakistan while she stayed back in India to pursue a degree in Mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University. Following this, she married her classmate at Aligarh and Indian diplomat Saad Hashmi and accompanied him on diplomatic missions around the world – Bangkok, Paris, Tokyo, and New York, among others. With each city becoming home in turn. For her, however, home was not a physical place, but a place where your loved ones resided. As Zarina herself commented while discussing her series 'Letters from Home'- ""Many people have asked why I titled this portfolio Letters from Home when I have never lived in Pakistan. For me, home is not a place. It is wherever the people you care about most are waiting for you.” The place in Pakistan being referred to here is her elder sister's home in Karachi.

As she traveled across the world, she continually learned methods of printmaking. She also experimented with paper and its various forms, furthering her understanding of the material’s potential by puncturing, sewing, scraping, and weaving. Her fascination with architecture and geography led to her adoption of maps, floor plans, and other architectural elements to create her unique visual language. The visual language of her prints is often categorised under minimalism."