Coming from a family in Gandaria, Dhaka, where music, literature, and dancing were encouraged, Sharmeen naturally flowered into a teenager who read adult books of world literature, which influenced her painting. The lyricism in her prints were furthermore made more sophisticated with her alliance to her journalist husband Ziaul Karim, who also indulges in poring over books on literature and fine arts.

In bringing in idyllic scenes of Bangladeshi village scenes full of flowers, waving paddy and mustard fields, the meandering rivers, the gorgeous women, along with other birds and beasts, Sharmeen has stressed the need of mankind to return to nature. She feels that man has not achieved peace, harmony and contentment. Man has progressed, she admits, but in a mindless pell-mell manner. This view may not be new but putting it in beautiful prints in cascading shades and swirls, along with dots and dashes makes this a nouveau endeavour.

Her images differ with each exhibition, held at Alliance Francaise over the years and at Hyacinth Gardens at Mirpur. "Shako"'s two endeavours also witnessed her pristine prints. She has exhibited her works during her two sojourns at USA.

Inspired by Baudelaire, TS Eliot, Jibananada Das, the French Impressionists, and the contemporary European and American artists, whose works she studied at the art galleries overseas, she turned more pages of art books which she had brought home along with her. This added to the knowledge that she gleaned over the years of her poring over tomes containing information on world art and literature. Foreign exposure widens the horizons, one believes, and Sharmeen's trips to USA did just that. She is good at mixing and mingling socially. Her frequent trips to the Café

Veranda at Alliance Francaise (where she exchanges her views on fine arts and literature with her fellow artists and visiting litterateurs ) add to her mine of information in her field.

Sharmeen is also a feminist. Influenced by the writings of Simone de Bouvoir and Germaine Greer, she strongly believes that she should be independent. Thus she plies her work, making sketches for her romantic world of fields, clouds, flowers and boats in her many sketchbooks that she has collected. She has regularly sailed in to do her print work at the DU campus premises and needed no print machine of her own.