RICHMOND, VA.- The new 21st-Century Gallery at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts features a rich diversity of global artists including Julie Mehretu (Ethiopia), Shahzia Sikander (Pakistan), Farhad Moshiri (Iran), Yukinori Yanagi (Japan), William Kentridge (South Africa), Jiha Moon (South Korea), David Schnell (Germany) and Indian artist Ravender Reddy. Reddy is known for his brightly painted sculptures of life-size figures and monumental heads, usually painted bright blue or gold. A current international news photo features a Reddy sculpture in front of the flame-engulfed Central World Department Store in Bangkok. Reddy’s work blends the past with the present and the spiritual with the vernacular. He draws from sacred Indian traditions of temple sculpture and religious mythology, making figures that seem to update the classical gods and goddesses. At the same time, he finds inspiration for his subjects in everyday culture,