Born and raised in Chennai, India, Suchi Reddy immigrated to the United States at the age of eighteen. Her early affinity for art, architecture, and culture was fostered by her lawyer/philosopher father who was the first to be educated in his family and her mother who, despite never attending school, taught herself seven languages. Reddy began studying architecture in India and continued her studies upon her arrival to the U.S. via Detroit. Traveling the country, living and working in eight states, Reddy developed a keen sense for the similarities and differences that bind communities together, and began exploring them through her artistic practice with the liminal perspective of an immigrant
In 2002, she founded her New York-based firm, Reddymade with a focus on the emerging field of “neuroaesthetics.” Her mantra is the idea that “form follows feeling,” and it guides her work in the way in which it generates wonder and engagement in the communities it serves.
Reddy’s artistic practice takes root in her architectural training with its expression as public sculpture and experiential work. She tackles issues of societal engagement using art and experience to create discourse around subjects with both local and global relevance. Her work always engages material innovation and interactive technologies in the service of expressing ideas around the power of community. Her spatial and experience-oriented approach to art has garnered acclaim for her installations which are designed to generate a ripple effect that continues past the life of the work in its first iteration.
Her public art installations include The Connective Project (2017), which covered 2.5 acres in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park in an undulating field of 7,000 yellow pinwheels carrying messages and images from the surrounding communities; and X (2019), installed in Times Square, as a tectonic expression of inserting unity into difference and finding love and equality.
In 2021, a large-scale sculptural work, entitled me + you, was unveiled at the Smithsonian’s Arts and Industries Building in Washington, D.C. The interactive sculpture integrates artificial intelligence, visualizing the balance between individual responsibility and collective agency, as a visceral experience that connects us all in shaping our futures. The work is the first major art commission by Amazon Web Services.
In 2022, Reddy unveiled a sculptural installation at the ICA Miami in partnership with Lexus. Entitled Shaped by Air, the ethereal and abstracted installation expresses the vehicle as being in harmony with its environment. Iterations of the installation were subsequently installed in Milan, Tokyo, and Jeddah.
Reddy was selected to design the 2023 Summer Block installation at the National Building Museum. Her installation, entitled Look Here, shapes a walk-in architectural kaleidoscopic experience in the museum’s Center Court. The installation was named best installation of the year 2023 by Interior Design magazine.
Reddy is currently working on a 17-foot tall public sculpture in the City of Surrey, called Becoming, which is situated in a community with a strong presence of immigrant populations and she is collaborating on a series of objects with Ekaya, a 100-year old textile house based in Varanasi, India, that brings history and craft into the avant-garde.