Ranu Mukherjee (born 1966) is an Indian-American artist and educator based in San Francisco, California.
Her multi-media work combines film and painting in what she has coined a "hybrid film." She co-founded the arts collective, Orphan Drift.
Education
Ranu Mukherjee received her Master of Arts at the
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...
in London, England after earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the
Massachusetts College of Art and Design
Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school ...
in Boston, Massachusetts.
Art career
Best known for creating strongly colored large scale installations that combine mediums such as print, paint, and drawings, her work has focus on topics such as
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
,
feminism
Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
, and
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
.
Mukherjee has stated that most of her work comes from a
neo-futurist
The Neo-Futurists are an experimental theater troupe founded by Greg Allen in 1988, based on an aesthetics of honesty, speed and brevity. Neo-Futurists in theatre were inspired by the Italian Futurism (art), Futurist movement from the early 20th ...
perspective as she aims to generate creative thinking among her audience. She also penned the term "hybrid film" as a label for her animated art that combines painted, photographic, and digital work into unique pieces.
Along with one of the founding artists, Maggie Roberts, Suzzane Karakashian, and Erle Stenberg, Mukherjee is a member of the collaborative Orphan Drift artist group. Often described as sci-fi because of their focus on underground music and technology, the group is known for their complex works that use sampling of other art to provide a remix using print, video, and text as their mediums. Most of their work focuses on subjects such as
cyber-feminism and
post structuralism.
After earning her degrees in art, she began teaching at Goldsmiths College in London in 1994. In 2002 She moved to San Francisco, California, where she teaches at
California College of the Arts
California College of the Arts (CCA) is a private art school in San Francisco, California. It was founded in Berkeley, California in 1907 and moved to a historic estate in Oakland, California in 1922. In 1996 it opened a second campus in San ...
.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
*2018 ''A Bright Stage'', de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA
*2017 ''Shivery Proof'', Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Lancaster, PA
*2017 ''Shadowtime'', Gallery Wendy Norris, San Francisco, CA
*2016 ''Phantasmagoria'', Table Arts Center, Charleston, IL
*2015 ''Extracted: A Trilogy by Ranu Mukherjee'', Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
*2016 ''Phantasmagoric'', Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles CA
*2012 ''Telling Fortunes'',
San Jose Museum of Art
The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...
, San Jose, CA
Group exhibitions
*2018 "Be Not Still", di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa, CA
Collections
* San José Museum of Art
*
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
Publications
*
*
Bibliography
* Dance Magazine. “Building Bridges.” Dance Magazine. Dance Magazine, October 1, 2020
* “Ranu Mukherjee.” In The Make. Accessed March 19, 2021
* “Ranu Mukherjee - Gallery Wendi Norris: San Francisco.” Gallery Wendi Norris , San Francisco. Gallery Wendi Norris , San Francisco, October 20, 2020
References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mukherjee, Ranu
1966 births
Living people
20th-century American women artists
21st-century American women artists
21st-century Indian women artists
Indian women contemporary artists