Marking 30 years of Gallery Sumukha in Bengaluru, The Dichotomy of Dimension brings G. Ravinder Reddy back to the city for his first solo exhibition in India since 2017. The focused presentation brings together five sculptures made between 2018 and 2026, including the monumental Portrait of Parvati (2019), four new wall-mounted reliefs, and an intimate artist’s proof from 2018. Together, the works trace Reddy’s continuing engagement with the human form, femininity, colour, ornamentation and the relationship between sculpture and space.
For Reddy, holding a solo exhibition is particularly challenging because sculpture is often dispersed across group shows and collections. This exhibition, therefore, offered an opportunity to bring together older works and new pieces while reflecting on his evolving practice.
The artist’s sculpted heads became instantly recognisable in the 1990s, when his approach to image-making stood apart from much of the contemporary Indian sculpture of the time. Their monumental scale and striking faces have since prompted unexpected reactions from viewers around the world, often drawing people back for a closer look. Yet Reddy says his fascination with faces is not about simply reproducing appearances. His process remains exploratory, with proportions, volume and embellishment continually being reassessed even after a work appears complete.
Colour has been central to this language. Reddy recalls feeling, even as a student, that something was missing from contemporary Indian sculpture because many traditional Indian sculptural forms were originally colourful. He found inspiration in folk and tribal traditions, where vivid natural pigments were used to animate sculptural forms and communicate meaning. His use of primary colours, therefore, is not merely decorative but rooted in an understanding of India’s living visual traditions.
The new reliefs represent another stage in this exploration. After decades of creating objects that occupy three-dimensional space, Reddy is now investigating what happens when his sculptural vocabulary moves onto the wall. The shift allows him to reconsider volume, surface and architectural space while retaining the visual vocabulary that has defined his practice.
Despite international recognition and museum collections across the world, Reddy remains driven by an unresolved search for perfection. He describes the process of discovering shortcomings in a work days or weeks after completing it—perhaps a proportion feels wrong, or a volume or embellishment needs adjustment. Unlike a painting, a sculpture cannot simply be overworked indefinitely; sometimes the answer is to begin again.
That continual dissatisfaction, rather than certainty, appears to be what keeps his practice alive. For Reddy, there is no fixed “next” destination. The work continues, one sculpture at a time.
Read the full story that first appeared in The New Indian Express dated Sep 6, 2026 here:
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