The U.S. solo debut of London-based, Irish artist Kevin Francis Gray.

In hard candy, high-gloss, and shimmering metallic finishes, Kevin Francis Gray reinvents iconic forms culled from the religious and mythological traditions of the High Renaissance. By juxtaposing London’s gritty East End street culture and certain unequivocally canonical sculptural themes, Gray conflates contemporary youth culture with the West’s old masters, the here and now with the classical, to expose eternal themes of desire, vanity, love and tragedy.

In another work on exhibit titled Icarus, 2005, Gray riffs on the mythological theme of the flight of the son of Daedalus. Covered by a resplendent, ghostly, white sheen, Gray’s half-sized figures stand tragically frozen. A young teen holds Icarus’s head, which has clearly plummeted from the heights of joyriding, while three other teenage girls stand watch over him. One of the girls looks to the sky. Though Gray’s Icarus is clearly from the streets, his mien and that of his company suggests that he may have fallen from the sun.

Kevin Francis Gray has exhibited his work in The Royal Academy, London; Cal Tech, Los Angeles; Harvard Galleries, Boston; Changing Role, Napoli; and One in the Other, London.