Crying Portrait of Kim Alexis as a Renaissance Madonna with Holy Child (After Bellini)

When Francesco Vezzoli observed that emotions play a key role in the history of art, but that tears are curiously absent from painting, he began to embroider them on faces. This gives the portraits — symbols of power or belief — such a melancholic vulnerability that they ironically melt the frame. Vezzoli has reinterpreted works from the past by incorporating figures that are venerated today: in this instance, the model Kim Alexis strikes the pose of a Renaissance Madonna and Child. The artist uses embroidery again to explore the many facets of the face of the writer Colette, an icon of the women's liberation.