growing up in south florida enabled alex to experience things viscerally in a culturally repressed area. the recent tufts university grad discovered his love for all types of art while experiencing the ups and downs at uni. living with severe depression freshman and sophomore year, alex turned to photography as an outlet. “I took photographs of whatever intrigued me, like white girl stuff of the fall leaves to me in the shower.” on top of studying pre-med, he became allured to attaining a minor in studio of fine arts at the mfa (museum of fine arts) in boston. “medicine makes you feel grounded, whereas in the arts, I’m constantly spinning in a bliss of personalities and peoples.. if I ignored that side, I’d be ignoring who I am and I’d go crazy. I feel like I’m always on the point of hesitation.”

moving to a new city and attending tufts enabled him to see how this uni lifestyle broke down all the norms and barriers of our confined society. “there were ambisexuals, pansexuals.. it was a cultural shock, yet still liberating considering I’ve never been part of the ‘mainstream’ crowd. I was reserved as a kid and growing up with the firm gender binaries and macho culture of jamaica didn’t exactly help.” the jamaican-chinese-lebanese man became more “open” and “inspired,” and doesn’t feel the need to live by the rules of society: “I take fashion as who I want to be that day ~ [on the day of the photo shoot, alex wore an amish hat, tee, and overalls.] some fashion brands I like are thom browne, william ockpo, and haider ackermann.”

what people may not know about him is that his inspired channel of thinking came from watching america’s next top model (antm) with his mom in high school, for he adored the creativity behind the post photo shoots and how the pictures would reveal themselves. while doing missionary work in jamaica, he would do “documentary style photography,” like catching people when they’re not realizing it amongst their conventional lives – basically a passion for art that exposes the vulnerable side of people. other unique things about alex is that he’s practiced kung-fu for 14 years and has a huge obsession with waves, specifically the time before the wave is about to crash, where it splits into 2 and completely separates.

“music is based around my mood, but right now I’m really into the ambient type, which makes me feel like a wave. super influential artists to me are tycho, brian eno, harold budd, solange, and el ten eleven.” the self-proclaimed “conflicted” man also looks up to an artist group based in seattle called kessey pollock, who do life casts of people and makes video pieces of them melting. “although the molds are temporary, they’re something beautiful yet haunting at the same time. these life casts quote to life: you have the ability to redefine your life, for nothing in reality is concrete.” check out some of his artistic work here.