Important Notice

“I strive for something iconic and monumental that transcends the boundaries of culture, nature and geography.” - G RAVINDER REDDY

G Ravinder Reddy is best known for his iconic heads that pay tribute to female sensuality and power and represent the artist’s preoccupation with the female form. The monumental fibreglass sculptures are crafted in a striking combination of tradition, folk, and kitsch. The inspiration for this dominant... “I strive for something iconic and monumental that transcends the boundaries of culture, nature and geography.” - G RAVINDER REDDY

G Ravinder Reddy is best known for his iconic heads that pay tribute to female sensuality and power and represent the artist’s preoccupation with the female form. The monumental fibreglass sculptures are crafted in a striking combination of tradition, folk, and kitsch. The inspiration for this dominant leitmotif in his works was first sparked when the artist witnessed powerful Benin bronze heads, modelled on chieftains, at an exhibition in London in the early 1980s. He also imbibed the qualities of Kalighat paintings remarking, “Kalighat paintings inspired me because they portrayed what they saw in a very simple, straightforward manner with minimum effort. They are very forms that give the effect of three- dimension. And they are about everyday matters. They have a sensuousness and directness.” (Artist quoted in Soumitra Das, “Goddess of Our Times,” The Telegraph, 24 July 2017, online)

Reddy uses a minimalist style to accentuate the feminine features of his larger-than-life painted heads. These, like the present lot, have wide eyes lined with kohl, brightly painted lips that are expectantly pursed, elaborately moulded hair ornaments, and bejewelled ears and noses. Unabashed in their sensuality, they assume an iconic quality associated with early civilisation art from Egypt and Mesopotamia, and fix you with a bold gaze. Observes Gieve Patel, “Invariably, they look frontally through wide-open eyes, the characteristic attitude of one who proclaims. None of the sculptures looks sideways, or over the shoulder.” (Gieve Patel, “Painted Sculptures and Reliefs [1989 - 91],” Mumbai: Sakshi Gallery, Critical Collective, online)

Unafraid of embracing kitsch in his work, Reddy uses his sculptures to explore its role and place in the development of Indian culture. Combining the high art of religious icons with more common references to Indian cinema and bazaars in his women’s vivid lipstick and finely detailed ornaments, the artist provides his viewers with a unique perspective on both historical and contemporary India. The bright primary colours, which are signature of his works, emphasise the form of the figure and allow him to “transfigure the real in his imagery into the extra real...it could be argued that colour in his works becomes the forthright carrier of presence and sacrality. It is what gives the ordinary and the everyday its transformative powers, forcing his figures and heads to release their hidden energy, gesturing, ‘ever so obliquely to truths that remain otherwise concealed.’” (Tapati Guha-Thakurta, “The Work of Art as Icon: Among the Monumental Heads of G Ravinder Reddy,” Anupa Mehta ed., Rasa: G Ravinder Reddy - Works from 1989 - 2019, Kolkata: Emami Art, 2019, p. 15)

These heads have also come to epitomise Reddy’s interest in blending the old with the new not just in form, but also in technique. “The marvel lies in the way this in this inexpensive synthetic material is rendered into an artistic medium of preference, where the sculptor can achieve both the desired lightness of weight that fibreglass and polyester resin carry and make possible the massive sizes with which he works, as well as highlight the opacity, sheen and glossiness that enamel car paint brings. To transform the ordinariness of this material into the preciousness that radiates out of the shapes and surfaces of these heads became his artistic tour-de-force.” (Guha-Thakurta, p. 12)

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