Untitled (Head - Gold)
Artist: Ravinder Reddy (Indian, b. 1956)
Date: 2003
Dimensions:
H: 44 in. (111.8 cm); W: 24 in. (61 cm); Depth: 42 in. (106.7 cm)
Medium: Fiberglass, resin and gold gilt
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of The Georgia Welles Apollo Society
Object number: 2014.20
Label Text:Indian sculptor Ravinder Reddy creates monumental female heads that draw upon two divergent sources: India’s sacred traditions and the country’s everyday contemporary culture.
The heads’ wide-open, staring eyes and severe frontality and symmetry are arresting, even confrontational. Born in Suryapet, in the Andhra Pradesh region of India, Reddy was influenced by sensuous folk-art forms, particularly brass gauri (goddess heads used in Hindu rituals) and the brightly painted sculptures that decorate gopuram (towers) on Southern Indian temples. The facial features and bold colors of his sculptures also emulate the ordinary people and objects in his immediate environment and daily life. With his fusion of Pop Art, popular culture, and Hindu sculptural forms, Reddy fuses the ideal goddess with the ordinary Indian woman. “When I have this rich culture around me,” he has said, “why should I discard it and look to the West?”
The heads’ wide-open, staring eyes and severe frontality and symmetry are arresting, even confrontational. Born in Suryapet, in the Andhra Pradesh region of India, Reddy was influenced by sensuous folk-art forms, particularly brass gauri (goddess heads used in Hindu rituals) and the brightly painted sculptures that decorate gopuram (towers) on Southern Indian temples. The facial features and bold colors of his sculptures also emulate the ordinary people and objects in his immediate environment and daily life. With his fusion of Pop Art, popular culture, and Hindu sculptural forms, Reddy fuses the ideal goddess with the ordinary Indian woman. “When I have this rich culture around me,” he has said, “why should I discard it and look to the West?”
DescriptionA 44” high sculpture of a woman’s head made out of fiberglass and resin and with the skin gilded with gold leaf.
Not on view
In Collection(s)