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Ravinder Reddy's monumental "Devi" head is a striking combination of tradition and kitsch. The painted, embellished, decorated fibreglass sculpture of a woman's head gazing out with eyes wide open is at once shocking and intriguing, familiar and disconcerting. Familiar perhaps, because it harkens back to the iconic form of the Goddess, revisited by Egyptian, Greek and Hindu civilizations since antiquity. Disconcerting, because it fits more... Ravinder Reddy's monumental "Devi" head is a striking combination of tradition and kitsch. The painted, embellished, decorated fibreglass sculpture of a woman's head gazing out with eyes wide open is at once shocking and intriguing, familiar and disconcerting. Familiar perhaps, because it harkens back to the iconic form of the Goddess, revisited by Egyptian, Greek and Hindu civilizations since antiquity. Disconcerting, because it fits more easily into the pop art idiom of contemporary street art than with the Hindu temple art from whence it seems to draw inspiration. In the artist's words, "I strive for something iconic and monumental that transcends the boundaries of culture, nature and geography."

Painted in vibrant colours with lustrous gilded surfaces and elaborate coiled coiffures accentuated with flowers, Reddy's sculptures are imbued with a sensual, tactile quality. Taking from the canon of classical Indian sculpture, the gold and red tones are reminiscent of painted wooden images seen in South Indian temples. The colossal face of the woman with her painted red lips, large kohl-lined eyes and bright, shiny hair accoutrements exudes a raw magnetic appeal, transfixing the viewer with her gaze. Reddy early works included busts and figures which were always focused on the female form. He began making monumental heads of women in the mid 1990s and they have come to epitomize his interest in blending the old with the new in not just in form but also in his technique. "Reddy's ... combination of the traditional and the new extends to the artist's working methods as well - he fashions his models in clay, but his final sculptures are made of fiberglass, which may easily be embellished with paints (he prefers car paint) and metallic leafs and given the look of almost any real material" (Margery King, Ravinder Reddy, The Andy Warhol Museum exhibition catalogue, 2001, not paginated).

Reddy was one of the first contemporary Indian artists to draw critical attention in America following his show at Deitch Projects in 2001. The artist's works have been shown widely throughout India and internationally, including at the Sackler Gallery in Washington DC, the Victoria & Albert Museum and at the Peabody Essex Museum.

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