Rina Banerjee

Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris

Paris, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Foreign Fruit, 12 January - 28 February 2007

Good overall condition. Pinholes on upper right and upper left corners. Two areas of undulation to paper, upper center. Slight scratch in paper on lower left leg.
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Rina Banerjee studied material science engineering, before completing an MA in painting at Yale. Her paintings, drawings, installations and sculptures therefore contain a wide variety of media and multiple elements of texture and materiality. Banerjee’s works focus on content as much as the form and are layered with her own exotic imagination and emotions. Born in India but living most of her adult life in the United States, her imagery is a mix of cultural traditions, infused with elements of the East and West, giving her work an universal appeal.

Her love of fabrics and materials with different textures manifests itself in her mixed media paintings, sculptures and installations. What also becomes apparent after seeing her artworks, is her fascination with mythical and imaginary worlds inspired by a multitude of folk and fairy tales. Banerjee’s art becomes a conduit for imparting her own magical stories aided by her penchant for wordplay and the carefully thought out titles of her works. These titles are often used to guide the viewer through her work, and partly explain her thought-process. Her art is concerned with questions of identity and how identity is formed from her works. Banerjee's practice deftly traverses the boundaries of reality and transports the viewer into Banerjee’s own private sphere, full of fantastical narratives and inventive subjects. Her materials and ideas seemingly contradict each other, yet are combined so carefully, that these foreign forms become familiar to us.

This work titled The Strain of Fruit Eaten Twice Produced More and More contains many connotations; the downfall of man after Eve ate the apple from the tree, humankind’s tendency to repeat its mistakes, and the fallacy of weak willpower. The fruits depicted in this painting, created with Banerjee’s signature hot pink colour, do not seem to belong to our world but are wrapped with a bow, abundantly falling from the skies, tempting the subject to taste it. The strange but oddly endearing creature of Banerjee’s own making has Medusa-esque hair, another nod to her fondness for historical parables. Although the soothing colours and glitter may initially lull the viewer into a sense of wonderment, further contemplation brings forth sinister undercurrents and a feeling that something darker lies beneath the surface of this work. Banerjee’s art revolves around a world replete with hybrid exotic beasts that represent a global construction of her thoughts and ideas.

"I could never be a Minimalist artist: I am interested in corrupting fine art with everything I wish for. I want adventure and to feel the same sense of command that I imagine an explorer or a scientist would–like a visitor trespassing. My art is about the value of our desire to travel. I am not interested in being wrapped around any country or community so tightly that it cannot allow this; the need to travel is psychological, intellectual, and emotional, Freedom is the most expensive commodity; nature the most dangerous beauty. My work examines both. My art depicts a delicate world that is also aggressive, tangled, manipulated, fragile, and very, very dense." (As told to Zehra Jumabhoy, 'Rina Banerjee', ArtForum.com, accessed from http://artforum.com/words/id=28485 on 20th January 2013)