what kind of Bird are you?: Rina Banerjee
Ota Fine Arts Shanghai is pleased to present "what kind of Bird are you?", the debut solo exhibition in China by Indian-American artist Rina Banerjee (b. 1963, Kolkata, India). Featuring sculptures, paintings and mixed-media works on paper, the exhibition showcases Banerjee's ongoing exploration of postcolonial diasporic identity and the complexities inherent in traditions and cultures.
Born in India and raised in London and Philadelphia, Banerjee did her MFA in Painting at Yale University from 1993 to 1995 and now lives and works in New York City. Her multicultural background has led her to explore and challenge the issue of "self-identity" throughout her decades-long artistic career. Under the influence of history, culture and society, human identity is undoubtedly complex and multi-faceted, and cannot be defined simply by labels or experiences. The exhibition title "what kind of Bird are you?", serves as a metaphor for the species "bird", which prompts the viewers to reflect on the perception of identity.
Banerjee's sculptures utilize materials sourced from around the world—ranging from natural elements, tools and currencies, and folklore artifacts—assembled through methods such as stacking, hanging, spreading, and weaving. The core piece in the exhibition, World Lost (2013), consists of a suspended inverted dome and a map of a watershed depicted in sand, shells, figurines and threads. This sculpture was created in response to the scarcity of potable water in Bangladesh. The rows of plastic cups scattered on the map, the hanging light bulbs and small bottles, and the inverted dome all hint at the brutal subversion and destruction of the ecological order caused by excessive industrialized development.
If Banerjee's large-scale sculpture which occupies the surrounding space and floor, requires viewers to immerse themselves and appreciate the work from multiple perspectives, her wall-mounted sculptures are more aggregated and inclusive. In See her beak... (2017), beneath a ceramic swan's head, Korean silk fabric, plastic mesh, sequins, and beads are intertwined to form the body, while slender, sharp black horns and Philippine shells adorning them become the tail feathers. Through Banerjee’s rearranging and assembling, the sensory qualities of the media are amplified, conjuring up an uncanny creature that is both familiar and strange. By using the objects from various historical contexts, Banerjee deconstructs cultural traditions and conveys the idea of the multifaceted nature of identity; that identity is a collection of different past histories that can be chosen by the individual based on self-identity.
It is worth mentioning that before entering Yale University to pursue her MA in Art, Banerjee had a bachelor degree in Polymer Chemistry. The transition from a chemist to an artist was, in fact, a self-made choice after four years of contemplating: "Who am I? How do I want to spend the rest of my life?" In 2000, Banerjee gained international recognition for her work Infectious Migrations at the Whitney Biennial. Since then, her works have been frequently exhibited around the world, including Greater New York Show at PS1 MOMA (2005, 2015) and the Venice Biennale (2013, 2017). Her mid-career retrospective exhibition toured five museums in the United States from 2018 to 2021.
Banerjee's artistic approach also involves mixed-media painting. In a series of acrylic paintings and watercolor on paper in the exhibition, human and animal figures appear in bizarre and fantastical forms, alluding to Indian and global myths and histories. These protagonists are predominantly female, and for Banerjee, she is committed to liberating these figures from the stereotypes of colonial ideology. The titles of the works also guide the viewers into the otherworld she creates, such as In wonder and wildness, she fled and roamed out of her human family (2025), Striped and tight this long and tall dress… not to narrow (2025), On land with water and bathed in air…give me shelter (2022). These titles do not directly describe the scenes but rather enrich the visual imagery in the works.
Banerjee's diverse artistic endeavors explore contemporary global issues and interrogate the notion of identity, inviting audiences into her newly imagined realm of hybridity and interconnectedness.
