By Sarah Hotchkiss
RANU MUKHERJEE, 'THE LONG MIDDLE'
May 20–July 3, 2026
Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco
Ranu Mukherjee, a longtime Bay Area artist and educator who recently decamped to Southern California, returns to San Francisco for her sixth solo show at Gallery Wendi Norris. The Long Middle will include eight new paintings in Mukherjee’s complex, layered style. Her materials — pigment, crystalina (iridescent glitter), ink, chalk pastel, inkjet print — sit on top of and blend into patterned grounds created with cotton jamdani and silk sari textiles.
Her abstract, dreamy renderings of plants, animals and interior spaces convey a sense of constant movement and change. The eye cannot quite fix on a foreground, or an order of operations. Instead, Mukherjee presents fragmented, entropic ecosystems, fitting depictions of our current state of environmental, social and political affairs.
