How do you express contemporary life through the paradigm of classical sculpture? The Irish artist Kevin Francis Gray has an idea or two. He uses neoclassical techniques, but alters them to depict the undercurrents of urban energy. Gray once said that he “grew up in darkness,” a reference to the violent religious divisions that permeated Ireland as well as the atmosphere in Armagh, his hometown. Although those years are long behind him, the emotions remain alive in his work. Gray’s flawed, proportionless bodies—far from the perfected portrayals of antiquity—suggest deep-rooted psychological turmoil. —E.C.