Rina Banerjee

One of the foremost artists of the post-colonial diaspora, Rina Banerjee's work is intricate and enchanting. Having grown up in mixed cultural communities as far apart as Kolkata and New York City, Banerjee's multi-faceted creations fuse the boundaries between East and West. There is a thoughtful sensitivity in the multiple materials that Banerjee uses in her work. Be it sculpture or painting, through the technique of collage, Banerjee is able to appropriately represent the density of the urban experience by suggesting disparate phenomena to coexist within the same framework. Though easily found in street markets, each of the objects used in her sculptures are selected with awareness of their origins. She uses items as varied as feathers, textiles, epoxy horns, beads and umbrellas to explore the material manifestations of anthropology, ethnography, mythologies and the Indian diaspora. Banerjee first dismantles and then "reclaims" their readymade status into the hand-made, reconstructing them into exquisite metaphors for the urban, post-colonial, expatriated community of which she is a part.

[Rina Banerjee] (b.1963, India) is currently based in New York City, USA. She completed her MFA in painting at Yale University School of Art, where she won several prestigious awards. Her recent solo exhibitions were held in many museums in USA, including Frist Art Museum (Nashville, 2021), Fowler Museum at UCLA (Los Angels, 2020), San Jose Museum of Art (Sun Jose, 2019), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, 2018-19). She participated in numerous international exhibitions, such as Venice Biennial, Italy (2017, 2013), Busan Biennale, South Korea (2016), “Greater New York” at the MoMA PS1, USA (2015, 2005), the 7th Asia Pacific Triennale of Contemporary Art Australia (2012), Yokohama Triennale, Japan (2011) and the Whitney Biennial, USA (2000). Her works are held in the collections of museums worldwide, including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris, France) Foundation Louis Vuitton pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris, France) Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, USA).