Banita Mistry is a London-based painter & sculptor.
Through painting, writing and sculpture, Banita's practice uses materials and techniques associated with adornment and craft to explore individual and shared experiences of virtual technologies and identity.
Exploring henna through a painterly lens, Banita works intuitively with the material, subverting the traditional expectations of ornamental design and adornment. She regards her process as an embodied form of journalling, deriving gestures from of the ‘infinite scroll’ algorithm, mark making and language. Each work is compositionally unplanned and automatic, requiring endurance and focus, resulting in unpredictable, stochastic outcomes.
Henna has been used for millennia, across North Africa, the Middle East, and South-East Asia, by women to mark periods of transition or change, and celebration. Derived from ‘Lawsonia inermis’, a flowering plant, henna is associated with adornment, narrative and healing, make it a compelling bridge between the past and the future.
Through her work Banita is currently engaged in research on the materiality and history of henna, as an under-researched and often mis-represented craft.
Born 1986, U.K.
Based in London.