Colours:
Alexis’ Prism of Emotion
Self-Portraits
HeyBoy Exclusive
Colours:
Alexis’ Prism of Emotion
Self-Portraits
HeyBoy Exclusive
Model: Alexis Orosa
Photographer: Self Portraits
Birthplace : Sydney, Australia
Zodiac : Virgo Sun, Gemini Moon, Scorpio Rising
Exclusive Interview
Drenched in the interplay of light and shadow, personal pain and collective joy, Sydney-based artist Alexis gives us a lens to view the world anew. This multifaceted photographer, filmmaker, and writer weaves his narrative into a deeply emotive tapestry, effortlessly entwining his Asian-Australian identity, queer identity, and inherent artistry into his work.
Alexis brings his personal experience of Sydney’s paradoxical nature into focus, crafting a unique visual language that resonates with a haunting and authentic beauty. Despite the challenges he faced growing up in Australia, his lens offers a tantalizing glimpse into the heart of identity and belonging.
As a passionate film lover, Alexis infuses his photographs with dynamic, cinematic storytelling. His work echoes with musical influences, particularly the romantic period, introducing a harmonious rhythm into his visual symphony.
Looking forward, Alexis aspires to deepen his narrative exploration and expand into fashion photography, imbuing diversity and detail in his art. In this compelling interview, we delve into his journey, inspirations, and his vision for the future. Join us as we uncover the intricate layers of his work and life, framed through his distinctive lens.
Drenched in the interplay of light and shadow, personal pain and collective joy, Sydney-based artist Alexis gives us a lens to view the world anew. This multifaceted photographer, filmmaker, and writer weaves his narrative into a deeply emotive tapestry, effortlessly entwining his Asian-Australian identity, queer identity, and inherent artistry into his work.
Alexis brings his personal experience of Sydney’s paradoxical nature into focus, crafting a unique visual language that resonates with a haunting and authentic beauty. Despite the challenges he faced growing up in Australia, his lens offers a tantalizing glimpse into the heart of identity and belonging.
As a passionate film lover, Alexis infuses his photographs with dynamic, cinematic storytelling. His work echoes with musical influences, particularly the romantic period, introducing a harmonious rhythm into his visual symphony.
Looking forward, Alexis aspires to deepen his narrative exploration and expand into fashion photography, imbuing diversity and detail in his art. In this compelling interview, we delve into his journey, inspirations, and his vision for the future. Join us as we uncover the intricate layers of his work and life, framed through his distinctive lens.
Q) What inspired you to create your “Colours” series of self-portraits, and how did it help you document your journey through different eras of your life?
I started taking self-portraits when I had really strong, difficult feelings or when I had an idea I wanted to try but I no-one to shoot. I always want to take photos, and if I had no model, I had myself to say something with. In that way it was really freeing with no pressure. It’s a really good space to work. It was like writing in my diary when I didn’t have the words to. Often a diary entry is a worthy piece of literature, and I hope some of these photos are worthy of what I wanted to convey at the time too. I feel that’s a part of healing and that’s something we strive for subconsciously in art.
I came to photography later. I didn’t know I was capable of taking photographs or using film until 2018. I was encouraged by a fashion photographer, Travis Grace, the husband of one of my classmates during a period when it was difficult for me to write. I had no expectations at first. It quickly became the dominant means of expressing myself, the stories I wanted to tell or write, the futures I wished to have and the pasts that I’d rather forget.
They say that key to healing is integrating ourselves by placing events that happened to us into a timeline. Often momentous or traumatic things like love, violence and loss seem to exist as memories outside of space and time and it makes moving forward difficult. I think subconsciously, these photos are a way of acknowledging my feelings and recording them into a timeline. It integrates my personal journey. From the order of the negatives on the shelf to the order of them in Lightroom, to the colour of my hair: blue, then brown, then blonde, then red, then nothing and to dark again. It seems really prosaic using hair colours to define eras of our life. Maybe it’s a K-Pop influenced thing for me, but I’d like to think it’s because of what Luis Cernuda wrote:
<<Furia, color de amor / Amor, color de olvido.>>
“Rage, the colour of love, Love the colour of oblivion.”
That’s why I called the series “Colours”. Through these moments I can see how things changed. That helps us to be a whole person, not just live a moment in our lives. With all of the love, rage, oblivion and all that is in between.
Q) How has your Master of Fine Arts education influenced your photography style and creative process?
I did an MFA in screenwriting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art where a lot of prominent Australian actors and writer-directors like Cate Blanchett and Baz Luhrmann studied. I guess you could say my education began with words, not images. I ended up being more of a director and drawn to images – I’m very excited to be in post-production for my first short film and have done a few smaller music videos and I’m looking forward to doing more films. I feel that my training and this experience has made me focus on story in every image. Every frame must be efficient in conveying a strong, clear emotion, even if it’s just a corner of someone’s shoulder or the shape of someone’s hand.
For me, it feels like writing a story when I look through the viewfinder. I’m the cinematographer and camera operator too. And I’m the director as well. All of this all at once, always looking to create a frame that looks like a still from a film. I think because of my education in a different art form, a photograph can’t just be an image or be beautiful to be satisfying. It has to make me feel, understand and want more. I wish for a photograph – my photographs – to tell their own story within the frame and suggest an even larger one beyond it. Like a window into a world we can feel even if we can’t see all of it.
Q) Can you share more about the significance of your astrological signs (Virgo, Scorpio, and Gemini) in your life and work?
Hmm, I guess I’m capricious and moody? Ahahahaha. They’re the worst three signs, right? That’s everyone tells me! But I love people who fall under these signs. I hope that I manifest the good traits of these signs too: the meticulousness and analysis from being a Virgo, the need for mystery and depth of a Scorpio and the openness and flexibility of a Gemini. Those are traits I strive to have and I feel they help my work and give me courage in my photography.
Q) In your self-portraits, you’ve captured moments of loss, grief, and freedom. How do you approach conveying such powerful emotions through photography?
Hmmm…I think the author Mariana Enriquez whose novel I’m currently reading said it best: “It wasn’t my ambition…to write novels. I simply had to tell the story of the characters who spoke to me and I had to write my obsessions because it was a physical need.” I feel it was the same with me. I never foresaw that I’d be a photographer (or a filmmaker and writer), I merely had a physical need to express the image in my head and the emotion I felt. I never thought about an audience or aesthetics or anything like that. I just needed to tell this story, often personal within me or between others, as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered. It had to be done. Perhaps that’s how I’ve been able to capture those moments without fear. I’ve been lucky to have photography mentors and fellow artists to encourage me and help refine my work from that and manage with the greater fear – sharing the photos I took. I think I sometimes fear sharing because there’s a truth to them, the kinds of truths we don’t like to freely share because they’re intimate or unknown to us. But those are the truths that matter, right? And I believe in photography, ’the truth’ doesn’t have to be literal, realistic or documentary. It’s whatever expression that comes from within inside you. Sometimes the best truths don’t seem real at all. And there are many truths.
Q) What is it about the locations of Sydney and southern Spain that speaks to you, both personally and artistically?
I love Andalucía where my sister lives, but I’ve yet to find a way to capture its essence in a way that isn’t prosaic. I do have some ideas for the future. However, I’m currently on the Costa Brava in the north of Spain. The coast is wild and fierce. It is unforgiving, but beautiful. Powerful winds, rough granite against your feet, a broken and scarred coastline and the deep shade of Mediterranean blue. I find a lot of inspiration here. I’ve been listening to Le Sserafim’s new album when I run along the coast, about how we don’t need to be forgiven, we don’t need to forgive and we can be brave enough to exist as something broken or incomplete, but still beautiful – much like the landscape here. I took a lot of photos of the coast with that feeling. I’ve been challenging myself with digital and would like to experiment combining digital landscapes with analogue portraits into one. The landscape of the coast, the landscape of the skin, one and the same. What makes an arresting landscape for me is the emotion within it, and where I am, the landscape is emotive. It’s like a mirror to see ourselves in. I’d like to express the struggle for forgiveness, or the lack of it and of healing. They say healing is a spiral, we revisit things, but it’s not regression. We revisit them with greater distance and understanding and I’d like for these images to have that form and that feeling.
Nearby is the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres where he has a series of landscapes that are actually portraits. Rock that becomes faces and humans forms. I realized I had a similar sense looking at the coast. What is the difference between the texture of skin and the texture of the earth, or between landscapes and portraits? It was encouraging for me to keep taking photographs here.
With Sydney…it’s objectively beautiful, I suppose. The landscape has a sun-stained, worn out colour. I feel the light in Sydney is very harsh, so I usually shoot indoors. I sometimes snap landscapes of places that are meaningful to me, places I’ve been with those I love; first moments, like little memories as personal companion pieces to the portraits. In that way, it’s the emotion that inspires me more than the place, and Sydney being the city I grew up in, can be a minefield for that. I find Sydney a difficult place to be an artist and stay creative and I think it’s inspired me to create little pockets of intimacy and kindness in my photos away from it. From every limitation, form, I guess.
Q) When you couldn’t write, you chose to express yourself through photography. How do you feel photography offers a unique form of communication?
I’m interested in the subconscious and the unconscious, the things that we chase but can never attain, the things that drive us; the closed, but unlocked doors inside all of us. I want to open all of them. I want to have what is forbidden to us, and for some reason photography more than writing was a way I could access that, even if just for a moment. Lacan says the unconscious is a language onto itself. I feel that’s why photography is such a unique form of communication. It is a representation of the material, yet simultaneously it is beyond material language. We understand an image emotionally and intuitively, never with words. That’s powerful. It reaches things we can’t say. Photography to me, is the unspoken. And that’s important and freeing. I love writing, but I never found any solace in it or in speaking about how I feel. But, I felt a measure of it taking photographs.
Q) As a photographer who also works with self-portraiture, how do you find the balance between being behind and in front of the camera?
It’s been really intuitive. Acceptance is important. Working with film, you get what you get. It was a moment of truth no matter how it turned out. Constructed? Yes. But all of the construction ends the moment the timer is set or the shutter release cable is pressed. It’s like calling action on set, only you’re the performer and the story is your life.
I often took self-portraits as practice for framing, not just to express an emotion. With self-portraits, I think you work a lot more intuitively. Usually, I’ve set the frame on the tripod, I have to guess how to move and pose within it. You have to know the limits of your body physically and emotionally. The more I had a feeling I wanted to express, the easier it was to setup and shoot and the better every frame on the roll was – as I feel is the case on shoot with any model. But I feel it can sometimes be easier to push your limits rather than someone else’s. I always believe if you commit to the moment you will always create something meaningful, even if it isn’t technically perfect.
Tripods are essential too! Knowing your lenses’ focus distances, using objects on the same focus plane to set focus, lighting setups that are broad but convey something emotionally and clearly are all important, as well as a shuttler release cable or a built-in timer. Everything else is down to how much you can give.
Q) Can you share an anecdote or experience from one of your photo shoots that has had a lasting impact on you?
I was shooting a proof of concept for a feature film being pitched in Berlin. It was all black and white, inspired by Tarkovsky in style and by her experiences growing up in Iran, her personal story and the grief and pain of a whole country. It was just us two, simple lights and a dramatic location delving deeply into her personal history. When we had a safe place to explore the past, it had some of the most powerful work I’ve been lucky to help create so far. It’s really thanks to her and her vulnerability and trust. At the time I had just lost all of my hair to alopecia suddenly (it’s grown back through great pain and luck) and I think we were both in incredibly vulnerable states, trying to be brave. It’s made me feel that this kind of freedom and bravery – accessing the locked doors inside yourself and creating something beautiful from what you find is when the most impactful work is done and it’s easy for it to be beautiful no matter what the equipment is. It’s always marked me as what one form of an ideal shoot can be.
Q) What are some of your passions outside of photography, and how do they inspire or influence your work?
I’m primarily a filmmaker and I believe that influences my photography the most. I think I’ve always subconsciously tried to create images that look like stills from a film, where we don’t need to see everything to understand the meaning, where the subject is forever caught in motion. My cinematography mentor, Lee Meily, one of John Sayles’ cinematographers, and an excellent photographer herself taught me that we should feel the texture of a photograph. And I hope to do that with hair and skin, rock and sea. And when we look at these photos, I hope we don’t just see and feel the photograph, I hope we can hear it too, like when we read a good novel or watch a film.
Music is important to me. I don’t compose but I can play piano. I was always drawn to Chopin and the Romantic Period. I’m sure that the tones of that period influence how I see things. Even K-Pop is inspiring to me. When there’s an emotional connection, it helps us see things in new ways and that’s when I want to create new work.
Q) What advice would you give to aspiring photographers who want to create meaningful and impactful work?
Don’t listen to what anyone tells you. Including myself.
Everything you’ve ever needed to create something meaningful and impactful – whatever the subject, whatever the equipment – is already inside you. The experiences you’ve had – the good and the bad, the things you’ve seen, the language you’ve used, the films and art that have made you feel something, all of that is inside you and unique to you. They are the most important tools to your work – because no-one else has them. The question is, are you willing to access that? Are you aware of your own story, of who you are, of what shaped you? Are you willing to challenge every story your parents, your family, your culture, that society has ever told you about you? Are you ready to burn every bridge, face every fear, admit every desire, open every closed door within yourself to know who you truly are and what you really want to say? If you are and you know how to use a camera, you will create something that lasts for yourself and for others.
Q) As your career continues to evolve, what are your goals and aspirations for your photography and artistic journey?
A lot of my work is very personal and emotional. It started that way, as something completely for myself, until I was encouraged by Steve Frizza at Rewind Lab and by artists like Lulu Withheld and Matt Kulisch, as well as my mentor, William Yang to believe in my work as an art form and an important story. In many ways I’m still on that journey and want to go two directions.
I’d like to go even deeper as William has with his work, investigating his first-generation Asian-Australian identity and do an exhibition and hopefully a book. I have a few things in mind for that. I would like to be as brave in my story as he is and to share it openly as he does.
Simultaneously, I want to go beyond the personal. I’d like to use my sense of story and the emotion I can elicit for editorial work. I’d love to move into fashion. I’ve always had an affinity for fashion and I’d love to work with models of colour and mixed race to create images that are public and beautiful that reflect us. I’m a great admirer of designers and would like to capture the depth and detail that comes through a lot of their work, like with Sarah Burton’s with Alexander McQueen, Peter Do’s collections and Hedi Slimane’s with Saint Laurent, as well as Celine (I know I am in the minority, but I love his Celine collections, especially for men).
I feel fashion had a huge influence on me in creating images that were impactful, so it would be a really nice circular journey to be able to do that. Hedi Slimane was a huge influence for me when I was younger, especially his Rock Diary, which showed that you could be candid and gritty, but also beautiful. Matt Lambert has also influenced men too and I hope to have has much bravery and truth to my work as he does going forward. It would give me a lot of joy to be able to do that. What in our lives and in what we create is more important than courage and truth, beauty and joy?
