...THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

A Facebook blast from the past - 

It's great when I get requests from students in the UK and around the world, who want to interview me regarding my POLYGRAPH NUDES drawings. Some of them have even done really cool versions of their own in this style. At some point, I'll compile them into a blog article.

There are other people in the internet - seemingly professional artists - who are also intent on heavily imitating this style... to varying degrees of success.

This style has taken on a life of its own since I originally drew them in 2011 / 2012. A portfolio of the nudes made its wider internet debut in 2013 in Robert Kothe's great but short-lived art magazine The Corner, and then in a gallery debut in the West Midlands Open in 2014. The following year, they appeared in NORA Apartments, Orlando, and continue to generate interest wherever they go.

I'll be embarking on a new chapter in this style, later in 2018, and you'll see them here on this blog.

LAST CHANCE TO SEE!

'Woman Disrobing' is currently available to see at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, until Sunday 15th February. There will be an update on this picture, and some new pieces in this style, soon.

Woman Disrobing, Pen & Ink on watercolour paper, by Alexi K

NORA APARTMENTS, ORLANDO - ALEXI K'S POLYGRAPH NUDES

Nora Apartments, Orlando




Below: Woman Disrobing ( currently in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, UK ).

All images: Pen & Ink on A3 paper.

My POLYGRAPH NUDES ( pen & ink on paper ), were just a simple graphic experiment drawn in a pad, then forgotten about, and left on the pile of miscellany under my desk.

That is, until Robert Kothe, editor of limited series art magazine The Corner, decided to feature them on the back pages of the debut issue. From there, the art got flagged-up by a funky erotic art / fetish website, and since then, every time these drawings surface online, the internet goes nuts.

Fast forward and we have the main lady ( above ) occupying a corner of Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery's WEST MIDLANDS OPEN ( until February 15th - please go and visit, the whole show is a great endorsement of the region's talent ), and last week, Liz Seay and the team at Scott & Cormia Architecture + Interiors placed four high-resolution prints from the same series, in the gymnasium of the NORA luxury apartment building in Florida ( see below ).

The 'polygraph' style came about as a progression from my enthusiasm for life-drawing. I've always felt that an artist should, at the very least, make a regular attempt to capture his own species in art - simply as an exercise, not even necessarily to exhibit. 
I think that art has a linguistic element to it, so as a communicator, I always try to refine what I'm trying to get across. This binary style ( stark black & white horizontal lines ) is a way of communicating an idea with as little embellishment as possible. 

The images had to be re-scanned at high resolution, and refined for printing at 48in x 48in. Here's an example of how some experimental scribbles made it out of the studio and into the world...

All art copyright Alexi K.

Big thanks to Liz Seay.

...and not forgetting and all the supporters and re-tweeters, incl. DVYZE & Beautiful Agony, amongst many others.

RETWEETED: 'SEISMIC NUDE'

One of my 'Seismic Nudes' was retweeted by web magazine publisher ISSUU yesterday.

Fans of this style: I'll be doing more of these soon, I promise! X