Myth, memory and long division

Zarina Hashmi's works keep questioning ideas of belonging. See how she makes a single line echo the history of two nations

- NARAYAN CHANDRA BISWAS

The poet Dushyant says, “A true artist portrays what they have lived and suffered”. And you can see it plainly and eloquently in Zarina Hashmi’s art. Zarina, who passed away in 2020, was born in 1937 and raised in Aligarh, in what is Uttar Pradesh today. She was only 10 when Independence turned her world upside down. Her family was Muslim, and had to relocate across the border at Partition. Though they later returned to India, Zarina grappled with the loss of her childhood home. As an adult, she moved from country to country – first with her Indian diplomat husband, later in search of a permanent home to practise her art, which she finally established in New York.

Art critics often describe her work – drawing, printmaking, and sculpture – as incorporating Islamic religious motifs and geometry. Those aren’t the terms that come to mind when you view Dividing Line (2001), my favourite of her works.