Born 1956 Suryapet, Andhra Pradesh, India
Lives and works in Visakhapatnam, India
“Through the addition and subtraction of material (in the initial process of sculpting the form in clay), I am led to the image making process. It is as if the form of the sculpture dictates itself in that balance, volume, geometr,y texture and representation all come together to create a unified whole, a synthetic and ideal beauty For me transient emotions and feelings do not play any role in the creation of an object. I am concerned with forms that are universally understood. A limitation of means (in pallet, material and subject) pushes me further to refine the form..” Ravinder Redy
Reddy began making his massive monumental heads in the 80’s. They are modeled with remarkable skill and painted in dazzling colors, Reddy fuses the Hindu sculptural tradition with a contemporary pop sensibility mixing a reverence for traditional Indian sculptural forms with an appreciation of Andy Warhol’s portraits. In addition to creating a dialogue between traditional Hindu art and contemporary pop, Reddy also reflects the way young Indian women are recreating the feminine image to merge a reverence for tradition with an embrace of the contemporary world. Their elaborate hairstyles are adorned with hundreds of delicately sculpted flowers. Many are gilded, giving them the effect of religious icons.
Woman is the most enduring theme in Reddy’s oeuvre. The huge heads are vividly erotic but their worldly sensuality coexists with an other-worldly gaze in their large unblinking eyes. Reddy’s women fall short from delivering themselves as the object of desire, their disembodied eyes, alternately all possessing and unseeing, transform them into formidable apparitions or comic spectacle that shifts between iconic grandeur and mocking parody. Reddy’s women are ethnic, distinctly common, suspended between the urban and the rural, a cultural hybrid. Gilded and painted, Reddy’s heads are almost kitsch but nonchalant with a cool detached style.
Reddy fuses the Hindu sculptural tradition with a contemporary pop sensibility mixing a reverence for traditional Indian sculptural forms with an appreciation of Andy Warhol’s portraits. exploring and questioning the bizarre and obsessive relationship between them and their information hungry audience. He works in different media, from installations and photographs to oil paintings, examining the nature of Chinese society and how its culture is coloured with deception, sensationalism, obsession, sexual desire and violence.