Rina Banerjee facts for kids

Rina Banerjee (born in 1963) is an Indian-American artist and sculptor. She lives and works in New York City. Her big art show, called Make Me a Summary of the World, started in 2018. This show traveled to many famous museums until July 2021.

About Rina Banerjee's Life and Art

Rina Banerjee was born in 1963 in Kolkata (which was called Calcutta back then) in India. She grew up in London and New York City. She has lived in the United States ever since.

How Rina Banerjee Finds Inspiration

Rina Banerjee has shared that her art ideas come from her childhood. She remembers visiting her grandfather when he had homeopathic treatments. Many of the sights and feelings from those visits stayed with her. You can see these memories in her artwork today. She likes her art to be always changing, not staying still.

Rina Banerjee's Education

Rina Banerjee first studied Polymer Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. She earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree there. After that, she went to Yale School of Art, Yale University. In 1995, she earned her Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) degree in Painting and Printmaking.

Where Rina Banerjee's Art Has Been Shown

Rina Banerjee's artwork has been displayed in many important museums. These include the Bronx Museum of the Arts and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Rina Banerjee's Art Shows

Lady of Commerce - wooden. Hers is a transparent beauty, her eager sounds, her infinite and clamorous land and river, ocean and island, earth and sky...all contained, bottled for delivery to open an hole, a commerce so deep while large her arms fool stretched too wide and her sulfurous halo - a ring of glass, metal, stone retire to a sun of fire (2012), National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.

Rina Banerjee has had many art shows, both by herself (solo) and with other artists (group). Here are some examples of her interesting exhibitions.

Exploring Cultures in Art

• 2000: Auf Weidersehen in New York. In this show, Banerjee used materials from both Asian and Western cultures. She had plastic tubes running along walls that ended with rotten-looking fruit and leaves. These plants showed how tropical plants were moved by Western settlers to other countries. Some plants grew well, while others did not. The room also had a thick webbing, like a digestive system. Inside it were colorful powders and spices.
• 2010: Forever Foreign in London. This was Rina Banerjee's first solo art show in the United Kingdom.
• 2011: Chimeras of India & the West at the Musée Guimet in Paris. This show explored how Indian and Western ideas mix.

Art from Everyday Objects

• 2014: Disgust in Venice, California. For this show, Rina Banerjee created four sculptures. She made them from many small objects wired and strung together. She used things like cowry shells, rooster feathers, gourds, and glass vials. Her sculptures could look like humans or animals, or even still life. Banerjee carefully chooses her materials from special places. This shows how her art connects to different cultures around the world. All these different pieces come together to form one artwork.
• 2015: Migrations Breath in Singapore. These artworks were colorful and seemed to change as you looked at them from different angles. She used many objects like Indian sarees, glass bottles, and seashells. Banerjee likes that art can be fluid. She enjoys how a simple breeze can change how you see a piece of art.

Major Traveling Exhibitions

• 2019: Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World This big show started at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. It then traveled to the San Jose Museum of Art, the Fowler Museum at UCLA, the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.