A little girl once walked into an Ravinder Reddy’s exhibition, stopped before an enormous sculpted head and exclaimed to her father, “Papa, look at that big head; it looks just like you.” It was an innocent observation, but it captures the curious familiarity of Reddy’s work: monumental faces that may not resemble anyone in particular, yet somehow seem to belong to everyone. The 70-year-old Visakhapatnam-based sculptor has spent decades making such heads, which have become almost instantly recognisable as his signature. Yet, he says, putting together a solo show is difficult for him, whose works tend to be dispersed across group exhibitions. No more. In Search of the Perfect Image is his first solo exhibition in seven years, presented by the Bengaluru-based Gallery Sumukha.
For Reddy, the title of a work is secondary to the sculpture itself. “This is because the main thing is the sculpture —the head—and I give it an angle which is universal and doesn’t require a title to interact with. My primary aim is to draw the attention of the people to the work,” he says. Once he has their attention, it takes on a life of its own: “They start interpreting the work,” he points out.
His faces are rarely representative of any single person. Reddy studies striking features in different people. “I look and ponder over what they are, what is special about them, and why it is so different from others. I assimilate their qualities and put it all together, not from one person but maybe two or three. My purpose is to combine them into a monumental object,” he says.
The process, however, is anything but straightforward. “The charm of the work is that the form comes initially undefined. To arrive at a place of clarity is an ongoing struggle,” he says. A sculpture that looks right from one angle may fall short in another, forcing him to rework the piece. Reddy’s aim, then, is to go beyond portraiture and turn the face into a life study, as in Portrait of Parvati. “When I start working, it is usually on the form first. I gave it the title of Parvati, but it was open to interpretation. Whether as a goddess, wife, sister or mother, I don’t necessarily give it a religious context. Rather, the title suggests attributes of compassion and a beyond-earthly figure that adds an aura around the sculpture.”
As with almost all arists, colour is the language of his work. Reddy only uses primary colours—red, yellow and blue—along with brown and black, partly because these oxides are readily available. The brightness is deliberate. “This is when a sculpture becomes complete in Indian aesthetics,” he explains. Yet viewers bring their own meanings to the palette. “When I applied gold on my works, I was highlighting it as a surface of the form so that it radiates. But somebody commented that it looks like turmeric and sacred. Likewise, for the blue, somebody else said it is a Dravidian colour. So these associations change depending on the person’s background and perspective,” he says.
The new show marks a departure from the usual Ravinder Reddy style for the first time. He presents wall-mounted reliefs. Moving from three-dimensional objects into two dimensions, he shows the back of the head, not the face. “I wanted to make it a little abstract and, at the same time, familiar. That is why I took the back of the head as my starting point. In my portrait of Parvati, I have tried to make it in an abstract form, and yet a kind of recognisable shape through the hair buns (juda) of women.” The sculpture draw on the fading tradition of relief sculpture in Indian temples, reinterpreted through a contemporary eye.
Despite all the years and accolades, Reddy does not rest . “The search continues, and I have no idea what my next step or destination is. I am not even looking at destination. By creating sculptures, I discover the roots, so that’s how the day begins and ends,” he says.
Perhaps that is the secret of Reddy’s giant heads. They are monumental, but never quite finished in meaning. You look at them, and then, in some unexpected way, they look back.