RASHID RANA (B. 1968)

Rashid Rana's artwork is a dynamic discourse that creates an open dialogue between aesthetics, imagery, technique, medium, and socio-political ideals that transcends geo-physical boundaries. The term 'ommatidia' refers to each of the optical units that make up the compound eye of an insect. Rana astutely borrows the term for this series which comprise of reproductions of popular poster images of iconic Bollywood figures Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan, where each 'pixel' used to comprise the image, is made up of photographs of local men and boys from Lahore. This juxtaposition of heroic icon and the everyday unsung man on the street addresses the idea of a collective social cognizance and how it surpasses temporal confines.