RINA BANERJEE (B. 1963)

Rina Banerjee creates fantastical worlds in which mythical creatures and disparate objects exist together in complex layerings, whether in large scale installations, sculpture or intimate watercolours. Her love of materials has resulted in enchanting compositions, which confront the legacy of British colonial rule and Orientalism but are deeply rooted around her attempts to find connections between cultures. In this work the artist explores a dream-like world, a quixotic 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 lurkings, Banerjee succeeds in seducing the viewer into a world laced with mysticism. She has described her work as exploring "specific colonial moments that reinvent place and identity as complex diasporic experiences" and continues in her preoccupation with the role of anthropology, migration, commerce and mobility with tourism, which result in a collective cultural confusion.