Hashmi, Zarina | Rohingyas: Floating On The Dark Sea, 2015 — available on Composition Gallery

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// Rohingyas: Floating On The Dark Sea by Zarina Hashmi, created in 2015, is a poignant woodcut print that addresses the plight of the Rohingya people. This minimalist piece features a stark, solitary boat outlined in white against a vast black background, symbolizing isolation and despair. Above the boat, small dots representing distant stars add a sense of loneliness and vastness, while the black sea below is subtly marked with gentle waves. Zarina’s restrained style and use of monochromatic contrast underscore the emotional weight of displacement and survival in hostile conditions. Measuring 40 cm by 30 cm, this artwork captures a haunting moment that speaks to themes of migration, refuge, and the human cost of political conflict.

Zarina Hashmi (India/United States, 1937–2020) was an Indian-born American artist and printmaker known for her minimalist works that explore themes of home, displacement, and memory. Utilizing techniques like woodblock printing and intaglio, she often incorporated elements of Islamic architecture and Urdu script. Zarina's art reflects her personal experiences of migration and exile.

Zarina Hashmi

Rohingyas: Floating On The Dark Sea, 2015

Name: Rohingyas: Floating On The Dark Sea, 2015
SKU: 6631

Form

Limited Edition Print

Limited Edition PrintA limited edition print is one of a number of prints made at the same time from one printmaking plate. A fixed number are made and signed by the artist, indicating the printing order, using the format 1/10, meaning first of ten prints.

Medium

Woodcut

WoodcutWoodcut is a printing technique where an image is carved into the surface of a woodblock using gouges, with the remaining flat surface holding the ink for printing. The areas cut away by the artist do not carry ink, while the uncut areas do, producing the desired print. The carving follows the wood's grain, unlike wood engraving, where the block is cut across the end-grain. Ink is applied to the surface with a roller, ensuring only the flat, uncarved areas receive ink, leaving the recessed, non-printing areas clean.

Edition

Edition of 100

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Zarina Hashmi

Rohingyas: Floating On The Dark Sea, 2015

Limited Edition Print

Woodcut

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Deviding Lin(...), 2001

Limited Edition Print

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I have had people come to my show and start to cry. I always ask them why, and usually, they say "that is our story also."
- Zarina Hashmi

Zarina Hashmi, sometimes known simply as Zarina, is an Indian-born abstract minimalist artist known for her drawings, prints and sculptures. Zarina earned a degree in mathematics before developing an interest in printmaking, which she studied in travels through Thailand, France and Japan. While in France, she honed her printmaking skills under the tutelage of the noted print maker Stanley William Hayter at his famed Atelier 17 studious in Paris. Zarina Hashmi’s creations are primarily transcribed on paper and depict themes, such as home, displacement and journey. She was one of four artist groups to represent her native India at the Venice Biennale in 2011. Some of her better-known works include 'Folding House," which she completed in 2012, the 2009 piece 'Blinding Light,' 2001's 'Atlas Of My World,' and 'Home/Made/A Life In Nine Lines,' completed in 1997. Los Angeles's Hammer Museum displayed a retrospective of Zarina's art in 2012. Her exhibition Zarina: Paper Like Skin appeared at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City and the Chicago Institute of Art. In addition, permanent collections of her work can be viewed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, England; and the Bibiliotheque Nationale de France. Zarina Hashmi served as a Board member on the New York Feminist Art Institute during the 1980s. (Artist website)

Artwork by Laure Prouvost

What is Lettrism?

Lettrism is an art form that uses letters, words, and symbols to create artwork. The movement was established in Paris in the 1940s and later gained popularity in the 1950s in America. Lettrisme is the French spelling of the movement's name, derived from the French word for letter.

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Zarina Hashmi

Rohingyas: Floating On The Dark Sea, 2015

40 x 30 cm

Language & Currency

Zarina Hashmi