Forest

Ranu Mukherjee's work often investigates the complexity of colonial histories, contemporary identities, and cultural hybridization. Forest features two tree species, one native-California Redwood-and another foreign-Eucalyptus. The representations of jewels present throughout are photographs of collaged pages of Vogue India, which were printed onto bamboo paper and then collaged again into this work. These modes of translation and layering echo a theme that runs throughout Mukherjee's art: the gaps that occur between learned fragments of history. The viewer's perspective vacillates between senses of familiarity, otherness, and newness, collapsing time and mingling mythology with everyday events.