Stardust (work in progress)
inkjet prints on archival paper
2024-

‘Stardust’ is a series of constructed photographs using studio images shot for Bollywood film magazines from the nineties. These are re-shot as backdrops to pink satin cloth draped on top. The cloth conceals key signifiers of the image, many of which are central to making the subject desirable. The pink satin is of key importance in its associations with desire and the feminine but more importantly, in how it is a cheap, man-made replication of silk. The artifice is of the female figure replicating the role of the desirable actress, in a studio that replicates natural environments, in a final image using satin that replicates silk. The artifice becomes tripartite : space (studio), object (actress, satin) and image (photograph of a photograph). Archival material (the magazine image) becomes backdrop to a new image that is built on the concealment of various signifiers of desire.