Using photography and collage, Rashid Rana borrows from contemporary Indian cinema and western pornography in order to critique social culture. In Veil I, Veil II & III, Rana photographed an anonymous figure dressed in a burqa against a pixelated background. Upon further inspection, the work is actually a fragmented collage made-up of thousands of small, unfocused pornographic stills of women in the act of sexual intercourse. Rana’s works are charged with the juxtaposition of exhibitionism and personal anonymity, demonstrating his deliberate intention to unsettle cultural realities head-on.

In Rana’s Ommatidia series he takes some of the leading actors of contemporary Bollywood cinema and re-constructs their portraits in pixelated form. These renowned figures from contemporary cinema are the stable diet for millions of people in India who almost religiously frequent the cinema and absorb the choreographed dance routines and songs that are the signature of every musical.

The ‘stardust’ style portraits of Hrithik Roshan, Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan are reinvented by Rana as pixelated portraits. Their new context appears to deconstruct them of their value, firstly as portraits and then as celebrated people. Deep within each work Rana composes hundreds of smaller crudely cut portraits of many male figures that appear haphazardly photographed by the artist, in order to compose a kaleidoscopic portrait of each of these actors. The minute faces look in adulation at their idols. Rana cleverly suggests that these cinematic heroes are the invention of the viewing public, who invest their own imaginations in the hyper-reality that make up the lives of these icons.