Banita Mistry
About
Banita Mistry is a jeweller & artist. Her work explores themes of technology, environment, and adornment to explore the human condition.
After completing her BA at the University of Cambridge in English Literature & Education, Banita practiced as a lawyer in London. She commenced her career as a jeweller in 2012 after training at the British Academy of Jewellery (formerly Holts) and working for internationally renowned jewellers, Alex Monroe, and Ruth Tomlinson. Banita has been a trustee for the Hand Engravers Association of Great Britain and consultant to the Goldsmiths’ Craft & Design Council.
Recent projects include the iAtelier Maker programme with the Crafts Council UK and ceramicist Charly Blackburn (2021/22), and an augmented reality project with Snap Inc & the RCA (2023).
Banita was awarded The Behrens Trust Scholarship (RCA, 2022). She creates art and jewellery under her brand Foreign Body.
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Special thanks to:
The Behrens Trust
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Statement
In an era of rapidly evolving technology, Banita is compelled by its impact on the human condition. It is this interplay that drives her artistic and material research as she seeks to depict the enigmatic intersection between reality, virtuality, and our boundless imaginations.
Challenges to human perception have historically caused shifts in the sciences, arts, and spirituality. Human environments visibly expanded on microscopic and interstellar levels, and consequently, the granularity of space, time and materiality dramatically unfolded. Today human perception is on the cusp of yet another inflection point. Virtual existences, augmented realities, and artificial intelligence intersecting at increasing speeds, tease human perception and sense of self.
Banita’s work invites viewers to contemplate the profound ways in which technology has become intertwined with our existence and ecologies, influencing our perception of space, body, and time. Central to her exploration lies a curiosity about how we shape and navigate environments and identity, with a special interest in Asian / Desi futurism. From the intimate confines of a ring and the depths of blank screens to virtual worlds and the diasporic object, these spaces embody the metaphysical dichotomies of presence and absence, the visible and the concealed.
Portraits of a Spectacle
Portraits of a Spectacle
Step into a realm where the smart phone is regarded beyond its prescribed role, emerging as an immersive environment, a figurative passport, an autonomous or spiritual entity, and a form of adornment. You are invited to contemplate the spectacle of profound multiplicities embedded within this ubiquitous everyday object.
Regarded as being ‘useless’ as smart phones, these creations are simulacra – acting as spectacles through which to explore the changing perceptions of value, social expression, sentimentality, and materiality. Drawing parallels with traditional silverware, these smart phone sculptures propose a shift in what is considered aspirational in a globalised, contemporary culture.
By observing our relationship with technology and its integration with our lives, the work seeks to challenge the accepted paradigms associated with adornment and invites a fresh perspective.
The subtle knife, also known as Æsahættr (meaning the God-Destroyer) was a double-bladed knife which could slice through the fabric between the worlds of the multiverse, opening portals between them -- From The Northern Lights Trilogy by Philip Pullman
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The collection is comprised of 15 simulacra.
Ornament & Crime
Jewellery as crime
Graffiti compels one to fleetingly pause and observe spaces and objects that would otherwise be overlooked. The brick ledge along a rail track, the bottom corner of a wall or the discreet sign in the park are transformed into canvases.
Through highlighting un-regarded spaces with gold leaf, discreet voids become canvases that hold narrative. As an engagement ring can serve as a symbol of intent and commitment to passing eyes, the application of this ornament to un-seen spaces serves to provoke thought, encourage closer observation, and instigate a human connection with the environment.
This project takes a critical look at the 1908 essay by Adolf Loos – Ornament and Crime, through the lens of adornment as ornament. A highly controversial and influential essay (being a key proponent in the Bauhaus movement) these works are an exploration of how humans imprint onto the environment, and vice versa, playing with the meaning of adornment and jewellery.
Since ornament is no longer organically linked with our culture, it is also no longer the expression of our culture. The ornament that is manufactured today has no connexion with us, has absolutely no human connexions, no connexion with the world order --Ornament and crime, Adolf Loos (1908)
Medium: Gold leaf, RCA
Horror Vacui
Nature Abhors a Vacuum
A dent in the metal railings just off Brick Lane was discovered. A void, distinct from the other voids.
What came through it?
In the language of the environment, characteristic of Brick Lane, a graffiti object was created to fill this void in the railings.
Opportunistic or repair?
From a two-dimensional act to a three-dimensional sculpture, a hand drawn scrawl was given depth and body, now existing on another plane.
A foreign body.
Etched onto this sculpture is Bangladesh - a nod to the Bangladeshi community that settled in and enriched Brick Lane and its surrounds. Like their Irish, Jewish and Huguenot predecessors, immigration finds, fills, and enriches the voids in our communities.
Nature abhors a vacuum.
Medium: Vacuum, frosted & clear acrylic
Size: 430 x 730 x 6mm
Blue Light
Towards the blue light
Beneath each painting lie multiple paintings, layered upon one another. Each painting was created with a view of being stand alone and final, making the act of painting over each one, challenging, and therefore absolutely necessary.
Inspired by the layering and impermanence of virtual spaces and information, the layered paintings are reflective of a proliferation on one canvas / screen / device. The paintings are continual acts, only halted by a blue and definite circular shape, bringing stillness to the flux of the canvas. A blue light – the shortest and highest energy wavelength in the visible light spectrum. Emitted from our screens, blue light boosts attention, reaction times, attentiveness.
An awakened state.
Attachment, accumulation, and ego were the enemies. Like the process of creating mandalas, customary in Hindu and Buddhist practices, the process of painting over each layer reflects a search for order and truth. Instead of creating two-dimensional, concentric movements towards the centre like traditional mandalas, the paintings move on a different plane, creating depth and progressing away from the canvas. These acts of painting over painting, repetition and erasure are acts of growth, understanding and movement towards a truth.
This is the centre of the ring. This is me.
