The National Gallery has acquired three works by Zarina (active internationally, 1937–2020), one of the most celebrated South Asian artists of the past century. Although printmaking was her primary medium, her interest in materials extended to the inventive manipulation of paper alone, as well as projects in metal, terracotta, and stone. Ideas concerning displacement, mobility, loss, and memory are found throughout Zarina’s work, as she explored her rootless existence and the fraught politics of migration and cultural dominance in the various locations where she lived. These are the first works by Zarina to enter the National Gallery's collection and represent the range of her artistic practice.
Corners (1980) is a superb example of Zarina's cast paper reliefs. Recalling the facade of a nondescript, brutalist style of urban apartment buildings with repeating rows of recessed rectilinear windows, this relief exemplifies both her minimalist sensibility as well as her interest in architecture. The empty, recessed areas of the relief may also be seen as an allusion to displacement.