Best known as a printmaker, Zarina prefers to carve instead of drawing the lines in her work, to gouge the surface rather than build it up. She uses various mediums of printmaking, including intaglio, woodblocks, lithography, and silkscreen, and she frequently creates a series of prints to invoke the multiplicity of locales or concepts. For example, her seminal work Home is a Foreign Place consists of 36 woodblock prints, each representing a particular memory of home. Inscribed with an Urdu word, each print further alludes to the vital role language plays in Zarina’s work, paying homage to her mother tongue in decline.

 

Other works such as These Cities Blotted into the Wilderness, Countries, and Dividing Line, explore geographical borders and contested terrains, particularly those areas which are scarred from political conflict.

 

Apart from printmaking, Zarina creates works that entail puncturing, scratching, weaving, and sewing on paper. Zarina also creates sculptures using a variety of media such as bronze, aluminum, steel, wood, tin, and paper pulp.