She was Primitive and Childish but Escaped Extinction by Playing into Public Curiosity

Rina Banerjee creates fantastical worlds in which mythical creatures and disparate objects exist together in complex layering, whether in large scale installations, sculpture or intimate watercolors. Her love of materials has resulted in enchanting compositions, which confront the legacy of British colonial rule and Orientalism, while simultaneously being deeply rooted in her attempt to find connections between cultures. She elaborates, "Empires, when they grew rapidly, do so by accumulating and consuming, eating what was never theirs. Perpetually seizing land and amassing beautiful, bizarre foreign objects, these empires were also being eaten and possessed. Like fine continuous threads, we denizens of empires become entangled with each other's tastes in an infinite messy web of exchange, dominated by commerce by land, by sea, and by air." Banerjee translates this visually into a dream-like world, an idealistic universe of strange creatures amongst an explosion of hybrid flora and fauna. The organisms seem suspended in time and although there are subtle undercurrents of more sinister lurking, Banerjee succeeds in seducing the viewer into a world laced with mysticism.

Having begun her career as a polymer research chemist consulting for Dow Chemical and NASA, Banerjee moved away from science to further her interest in art, completing the MFA in Painting at Yale University School of Art. Her most recent exhibitions in the last year include her solo exhibition at the Musé Guimet, Paris and the Yokohama Triennial, Our Magic Hour, Japan curated by Akiko Miki, 2011.