Lot Essay
Zarina’s experience of the partition of the Indian subcontinent as a child, and her extensive travels with her diplomat husband through Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia, resulted in a unique conception of nationality and origin for the artist that eroded distinctions between place, home and location. Having lived in 25 different cities and towns over the years, it is unsurprising that one of the main themes Zarina’s work explores is the ephemeral nature of ‘home’.
Since the early 1980s, one of the artist’s main vehicles for this exploration has been the abstracted motif of the house. She explains, “It is not a house, it is an abstract form. I came to it by accident. I was making forms for paper casting, playing with a square and a triangle, and the two became a house [...] These are the three basic geometric forms – square, triangle, and circle. One cannot go any further. The forms are not gestural; this is Euclidean geometry.” (Artist Statement, R. Samantrai, ‘Cosmopolitan Cartographies: Art in a Divided World’, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Vol. 4, No. 2, Bloomington, 2004, p. 171)
In this sculptural installation, a set of ten cast and painted aluminum structures, process, medium and concept are as important as the final aesthetic. Influenced by minimalist sculptors like Carl Andre, Robert Ryman and Richard Serra, this work distills complex thought processes to produce a clean, uncomplicated image. Reminiscing about the image of the house, Zarina recalls, “I came to it when I needed to put my life in order. I suppose it functioned for me like writing an autobiography might function for a writer. It allowed me to situate myself after I had left the known path laid out for my life and struck out on my own. It was not that I wanted to go back, but I wanted to know who I was and what I had become.” (Artist Statement, R. Samantrai, Bloomington, 2004, p. 177)
Contextualising works like this one within her larger oeuvre, Ranu Samantrai notes, “Her gestures are always spare, generally abstract, and yet richly allegorical. She uses elements that can be explained biographically [...] Yet her work is not restricted to autobiography, nor does its interpretation require that knowledge from the viewer. On the contrary, it is readily available for appropriation, for it engages the viewer through his/her own biography.” (R. Samantrai, Bloomington, 2004, p. 168)
Since the early 1980s, one of the artist’s main vehicles for this exploration has been the abstracted motif of the house. She explains, “It is not a house, it is an abstract form. I came to it by accident. I was making forms for paper casting, playing with a square and a triangle, and the two became a house [...] These are the three basic geometric forms – square, triangle, and circle. One cannot go any further. The forms are not gestural; this is Euclidean geometry.” (Artist Statement, R. Samantrai, ‘Cosmopolitan Cartographies: Art in a Divided World’, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Vol. 4, No. 2, Bloomington, 2004, p. 171)
In this sculptural installation, a set of ten cast and painted aluminum structures, process, medium and concept are as important as the final aesthetic. Influenced by minimalist sculptors like Carl Andre, Robert Ryman and Richard Serra, this work distills complex thought processes to produce a clean, uncomplicated image. Reminiscing about the image of the house, Zarina recalls, “I came to it when I needed to put my life in order. I suppose it functioned for me like writing an autobiography might function for a writer. It allowed me to situate myself after I had left the known path laid out for my life and struck out on my own. It was not that I wanted to go back, but I wanted to know who I was and what I had become.” (Artist Statement, R. Samantrai, Bloomington, 2004, p. 177)
Contextualising works like this one within her larger oeuvre, Ranu Samantrai notes, “Her gestures are always spare, generally abstract, and yet richly allegorical. She uses elements that can be explained biographically [...] Yet her work is not restricted to autobiography, nor does its interpretation require that knowledge from the viewer. On the contrary, it is readily available for appropriation, for it engages the viewer through his/her own biography.” (R. Samantrai, Bloomington, 2004, p. 168)