UNVEILING RASHID RANA ARTWORKS
Rashid Rana, born in 1968 in Lahore, is one of the most influential painters in Pakistan who has international acclaim and is massively popular in India as well. Rashid Rana paintings reflect everyday issues ranging from faith and tradition to urbanization and popular culture. He completed his Bachelor’s in Arts from the National College of Arts in Lahore, Pakistan in 1992. He finished his Master’s from Massachusetts College of Fine Arts in Boston, USA in 1994. He is one of the founding faculty members and Head of the Fine Art Department at Beaconhouse National University in Lahore, Pakistan.
Rana’s artworks showcase paradoxes and duality of larger and smaller subjects together. He has experimented with various genres of new media art ranging from digital photography to installations and videos. The artist prefers not to be categorized as a painter and keeps exploring the globalizing modern world and the modern techniques. He works on images by manipulating, repeating and rearranging them with several miniature square shaped versions of photographs.
Rana’s most expensive artwork till date titled ‘Veil’ was auctioned at ₹2.8 crores in 2007. The artwork is one of his most popular ‘Veil Series’ which is a print depicting a pixelated image of women wearing burqas. The images are micro-mosaics built of stills of women. The artwork represents the oppression of women under the garb of religion; how society controls them, their thoughts and even their dressing. The series can be interpreted from different perspectives. The artist engages himself with the social and political connotations and presents the helplessness of women.
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Rashid Rana has sold 66 artworks, with a turnover of ₹30 crores so far. His most expensive work in 2021 is his Untitled C print which was sold for ₹73.2 lakhs. The artwork is a part of his Red Carpet Series. It is inspired by the Mughal style miniature paintings. The artwork is a depiction of a scene from the slaughterhouse in Lahore showing goats arranged in a line. He presents the duality of beauty and death disguised as the Indo-Iranian carpet designs. The artist constructs the formal aspects of traditional Eastern aesthetics and photographs captured from the slaughterhouse.
The artist captures the idea, image and the truth through the artworks, presenting a stark contrast between two extreme nuances. Rashid Rana paintings reflect the complexities and boldness that people create in their perceptions. He continues to stay in Pakistan and create provocative artworks to unveil the hidden perspectives. He wishes to blur the division between India and Pakistan and work freely on both the lands.
