Studio Visit with Artist Rina Banerjee | Christie's

The Indian-born, US-based artist shares insights into her practice and shows us round her studio in Brooklyn. Rina Banerjee was born in India in 1963 but grew up in London and New York. After graduating from university in Ohio she worked as a scientist before studying for a Masters in Fine Arts at Yale in 1995. When asked why she turned to making art she observes, ‘Where else can we have the pleasure, if not in art, of exploring when we are incoherent — but are [nevertheless] saying something?’ Combining fabric, feathers, shells and all manner of organic and constructed ephemera into a conjured cosmos all her own, Banerjee evokes fairytale, fantasy and, often, a hint of dread. Her drawings, paintings and large-scale sculptures and installations explore ideas of identity, history, and ethnic diversity and, as a review in ArtForum commented, the titles she gives these works are often ‘more intricate than their constituent parts’. ‘I like to play with the idea that we have an awareness of our ability to make our own histories, precisely and indefinitely,’ Banerjee explains. ‘That we can constantly edit and reshape it to suit to our own discovery of ourselves.’ Find out more: https://ift.tt/2HGOqqb -- Subscribe to Christie's YouTube: http://goo.gl/Vmh7Hf Sign up to Christie's Weekly: https://goo.gl/kc8qpV Follow Christie's on: Facebook: https://ift.tt/2elC9Zg Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChristiesInc Instagram: https://ift.tt/2iJ3lGm Pinterest: https://ift.tt/2elCafM