Alexis Franklin is a digital artist whose portraits make use of all the modern methods of technology, but with classical composition. The models are beautifully posed, highly stylish in appeal and show a breadth of human expressions that transfer the emotions and feelings Franklin has caught; the laugh of a child, to the deep-thinking and far-off stares of contemplation. Leaving you to wonder what is it they see? What do I see?
Alexis Franklin’s contemporary portraits are a construction in art; the building of layers done repeatedly to provide the strokes and texture that transform the images into masterpieces. When watching Franklin’s videos (warning: highly addictive, although the artist has stopped producing time-lapses for now) at first the brushstrokes appear abstract – so effortless is her art that she appears to know instinctually where to start. Franklin’s able not just to see but capture within the human skin a variety of colours, so as to form a more rounded individual, that’s neither flat nor so hyper-realistic as to be imagined whole. The skin tones are like an oil painting, while the background enhances the model and their emotions. Pulling the models from within their spheres to those outside it – living their everyday life.
From the collection ‘Girls’, 2018. Alexis Franklin.
Bēhance. YouTube. Instagram: @alexis_art
There’s a great sense of humour, but also optimism within Franklin’s work as though seeing the best of everyone and rendering it into the artwork. However, in conveying the realness and relatability of these models, Franklin has also caught their imperfections and perfections – for that’s what makes them alive. The subtleties of their personality, to a bold expression of colour that’s mystifyingly blended into them – almost like an addition of themselves, and a reflection of their current emotion.
Within Alexis Franklin’s art there is a thread of interconnection, a flow to the repeating style that makes a strong series of portraits, while still retaining an individualism to them – allowing the artwork to stand tall in telling the model’s story, and its one you’ll want to know more of.
