The Spring 2024 Leslie and Brad Bucher Artist-in-Residence is Rina Banerjee (b. 1963, Kolkata, India). Banerjee creates sculptures, paintings, and drawings that examine ethnicity, race, and migration, as well as American diasporic histories. In creating these pieces, she draws from her own multinational experience and especially her personal history as an immigrant. Her three-dimensional assemblage works are made with various materials sourced from around the globe, creating surprising juxtapositions of familiar and unfamiliar objects. Banerjee’s highly intricate works highlight topical issues around the lasting effects of colonialism, while pointing to larger questions of identity, climate change, and exchange in a globalized world. By playing with the symbolism and traditional associations of diverse media, she advocates for a multi-faceted identity that is not solely defined by origin or gender.  

Banerjee received a BS in polymer engineering from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland OH, and worked as a research chemist before completing her MFA at Yale School of Art, New Haven CT in 1995. She held teaching positions in post-colonial criticism at the Yale School of Art, and currently teaches in Columbia University’s art department. In 2020 she received the Joan Mitchell Foundation grant; in 2021 she was in residence at Art Explora, Paris.

Between 2018 and 2021, a major mid-career survey, Make Me a Summary of the World, was shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; the Fowler Museum at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA; Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN; and the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC. Other solo museum exhibitions have been presented at Kunsthall 3,14, Bergen, Norway (2021); the Smithsonian, Washington, DC (2013-2014); and the Musée Guimet, Paris (2011).  Banerjee has been featured in various biennials around the world, notably the Venice Biennial; Whitney Biennial; Yokohama Triennale; Busan Biennial; and Kochi Biennial. Her work is held in museum collections worldwide, including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Brooklyn Museum, New York, NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; amongst many others. Banerjee currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.