Ranu Mukherjee, bitter skin, 2023, pigment, ink, crystalina, and UV inkjet print on silk and cotton sari fabric on linen, 72 x 72 inches
Alice Rahon and Ranu Mukherjee: Time Warriors
GALLERY WENDI NORRIS OFFSITE
September 6—October 7, 2023
New York, NY: The themes and concerns alive in the work of Ranu Mukherjee and Alice Rahon cross generational boundaries and offer viewers the opportunity to consider ideas rooted in nature, materiality, and transcendence. Alice Rahon and Ranu Mukherjee: Time Warriors presents artworks that examine issues of migration and identities, our changing landscapes and environmental concerns, across history and into the future.
On view in New York City September 6 - October 7, 2023 at 529 West 20th Street on the ground floor, the exhibition includes approximately 20 mixed media artworks spanning the mid-20th and early 21st centuries, depicting how both artists innovate across media to further investigate their themes.
“Beyond presenting the work of two artists who I admire and am proud to represent,” said Wendi Norris, “Time Warriors invites audiences to explore the way their work, from different perspectives and across generations, shares ideas and themes as an open conversation. It is striking how both Rahon and Mukherjee experienced a world in immense turmoil and have harnessed this energy to create deeply poetic and personal explorations of time and expression.”
In the case of Rahon (b. Chenecey-Buillon, France, 1904; d. Mexico City, 1987), she utilizes sand and the earth as well as found objects in many of her compositions, and famously refers to herself as "a cave painter," having delved back in time and through her experiences with indigenous cultures in Mexico to render uniquely timeless, stylistic compositions.
Mukherjee (b. Boston, 1966) similarly explores the changing environments. Using the forest as a means of expressing connection with nature and time, she innovatively prints present day mass media images from climate change and feminist protests onto jamdani sari fabrics that are collaged into her paintings, often appearing as hybrid or invented groves of banyan, aspen, or black cherry trees.
Both artists take inspiration from India, Indian culture, and concepts of being and time. Rahon’s first volume of poetry was published in 1936 upon her return from a sojourn in India with fellow poet and artist, Valentine Penrose. Many of her poems and paintings address nature and mysticism, as well as the duality and union of humanity and nature. Mukherjee draws from her ancestry in India, poetically utilizing sari cloths as her canvas, investigating the transformation of its material as well as the multiplicity of ideas in her layered images.
Rahon once described a process of hers as “a type of enchantment, like the development of photos in a tray—little by little, the forms emerge.” Likewise, Mukherjee utilizes a layered process of printing on textiles and then putting them down in the color fields. “While my compositions are very planned out, it is also like printing in a darkroom and watching the image emerge,” says Mukherjee. “The chemistry between the printed patterns and the fabric and then the colors and images in paint is really exciting and the process often seems magical.”
Time Warriors is on view September 6 - October 7, 2023 at Gallery Wendi Norris, 529 West 20th Street ground floor, New York City.