Nasreen Mohamedi

Nasreen Mohamedi developed a distinctive approach to abstraction in independent India. Born in Karachi in 1937, she worked primarily with pencil and ink, arranging fine lines across the paper. Organic shapes, delicate grids and geometric structures formed a restrained visual language in which intervals mattered as much as marks. Her practice departed from the emphasis on the human figure that shaped significant strands of modern Indian art.

Photography accompanied this attention to structure. In black and white, Mohamedi isolated shadows, steps and marks in sand, turning fragments of everyday surroundings into relationships between lines. Paintings and diaries complete the range of her work. Through economical means, she gave abstraction a meditative intensity, allowing precision, rhythm and the openness of the image to remain in productive balance.