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"I strive for something iconic and monumental that transcends the boundaries of culture, nature and geography."
- Ravinder Reddy

Ravinder Reddy's monumental Devi head gazing out with wide open eyes is both shocking and familiar. It harkens back to the iconic form of the Goddess, revisited by Egyptian, Greek and Hindu civilisations since antiquity. And yet, it fits quite easily into the idiom of contemporary Pop Art. Taking from... "I strive for something iconic and monumental that transcends the boundaries of culture, nature and geography."
- Ravinder Reddy

Ravinder Reddy's monumental Devi head gazing out with wide open eyes is both shocking and familiar. It harkens back to the iconic form of the Goddess, revisited by Egyptian, Greek and Hindu civilisations since antiquity. And yet, it fits quite easily into the idiom of contemporary Pop Art. Taking from the canon of classical Indian sculpture, the gold and reds are informed by painted wooden images seen in South Indian temples. Reddy's heads, embellished with vibrant colours on gilded surfaces and elaborate coiffures accentuated with flowers, as seen in the present lot, are a striking combination of tradition and kitsch.

Reddy's early works included busts and figures which were focused on the female form. He began making monumental heads of women in the mid-1990s and they reflect the blending of old and new, not just in form but also in 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, Pittsburgh: The Andy Warhol Museum exhibition catalogue, 2001, unpaginated)

Reddy was one of the first contemporary Indian artists to draw critical acclaim in the US following his show at Deitch Projects in 2001. His works have been shown widely throughout India and internationally, including at the Sackler Gallery in Washington DC, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

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