"When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes"

"When I know your soul, I will paint your eyes" a quote from Modiglini, is the title of the upcoming exhibition at Southampton-
based Lex Weill Gallery. Featuring a coalescence between 19 th
Century European Masters and rising stars in Hyper-
contemporary portraiture, this exhibition is symbiotically
retrospective and prospective with a multitude of layered large-
scale paintings from the likes of William Bougereau, Jordan
Casteel and Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe, amongst others. The exhibition is a calling to age with a nod to how far we've come. It begins with the very inception of figuration in America, its initial adopted European identity and the fallout from the fragmentation of the French academy into the Avante-Garde. By Juxtaposing decorated artists of the late 1800s concurrently with the most academically acclaimed and institutionally supported figurative artists of the present era, the exhibition simply shows beautiful beginnings and exalted ends. It does not seek to contextualize the timespan between how we got here nor suggest processes and commonalities or dictate narratives. Maternal/Paternal subjects explore and emote identity and breathe introspection into who we are, what we've become and what we have to learn from the Mothers and Fathers of the craft.