Ravinder Reddy Ravinder
Reddy was born in Suryapet village, Andhra Pradesh in 1956. He did his B.A. and M.A.
in sculpture at M.S. University, Baroda (1975-82), the later period of which saw his body
and clothe is impressions influenced by Pop Art and simplified, smoothly bulging shapes of
a fluid vegetal, animal and human character playfully suging a surge of life forces. These
were followed by high relieves and all round sculptures depicting contemporary city girls
interpreted in warm humor through al sions to Mathura yakshis. Overly sexual, even
challenging and threatening, these modern statues of lust and fertility are loud, perhaps
vulgar, yet naively defiant and expectant also of tenderness and reveal raw feelings under
a crude, filmy glamour. There is a deep, physical immediacy in them which conveys emotions
and associations of meaning. Reddy's earlier platters and fiberglass works subdued inner
properties of the materials covering them in flat car paint in order to retain only those
traits which would emphasize the subjects' own palpability.
Between 1982 and 84 Reddy studied in London sculpture at Goldsmith
College of Art and Ceramics at the Royal College of Art adding terracotta to fiberglass as
his steady medium. From 1984 to 90 he was a faculty member, then assistant director of the
Kanoria Centre for Arts, Ahmedabad, eventually moving to teach sculpture atandhra
University, Visakhapatnam. By the later' 80's he was doing free-standing, oversize heads
and relief figures of nude women and lover couples in a gradually varied, steady
development from the style which yet more inherently blended an archaic and classic rooted
ness with present day sensuous ways on the popular plane. His contemporary nymphs - from
coy adolescent girls to sated middle-aged house wives, often gilded or painted in iconic
colours like blues, are massive and monumental, but intimately exposed. They look at the
viewer directly with their large, open eyes, almost hypnotically. Utterly tactile, fluid
and powerfully synthesized, yet with a capacity for delicate, nuances detail or splashed
under kitschy, oily pigments and garish ornament, they are also soft, enchanted, pleased
and serene. Although presented with a dose of irony and witticism, the aggressive ribald,
apparitions exude endurance, love, dreaming and sustenance, perhaps and indistinct sense
of being set within social moulds.
Reddy's solo exhibitions were held at Art Heritage, New Delhi and Bombay
198 1, Contemporary Art Gallery, Ahmedabad 1982, Max Muller Bhavan Hydrabad 1989, CCA, New
Delhi 1990, Sakshi Madras, Bangalore 1095-96, Sculpture, New Delhi 1995, Traditions/
Tensions, Asia Society, New York 1996. He has received junior and senior fellowship from
the Department of Culture, Government of India 1991-93, 1995- 97, LKA awards in Gujrat
1980 and national one 1980, a Sanskriti Award in arts New Delhi 1990.
