Untitled

Born in Suryapet, in the Andhra Pradesh region of India, artist Ravinder Reddy references ancient Indian sculptural traditions in his polyester-resin heads. Contemporising images of traditional Indian goddesses, Reddy plays on the American concept of "super-sizing", inflating these distinctly South Asian busts to gargantuan proportions. In spite of their imposing size and saturated colours, the artist cleverly imbues his sculptures with a sense of serenity and the brash faces remain docile and oddly domestic. The brightly coloured and gilded sculptures possess many of the characteristics of pop art, drawing attention away from their Hindu origins to focus solely on surface and decoration. In a way, Reddy's works address issues of femininity and beauty, suggesting both the pressure to look beautiful through the aid of make up, clothing and hair styling, as well as the pressure to maintain a reverence for and adherence to tradition, conservative as it may be. Through his gargantuan transformations and re-appropriations of ancient Indian temple sculpture, Reddy is commenting on how India's religious and cultural history are being diluted and westernised by the racing bandwidth and relentless bombardment of internet and other mass media from abroad.