Master Of Creativity - Alex Box Selfridges Performance

"It's like my mind is a tap of creativity and I can't turn it off... drip, drip, drip." - Alex Box

Last week I went back home to London, and had the amazing opportunity to see Alex Box's live performance at the Everyman Cinema in Selfridges. Watching Alex work is always such an intense experience, and I am always so moved by her work. The sheer emotion that she puts into her art seems to radiate throughout the entire room - her passion and dedication to her work is an overwhelming presence in itself.

The leaflet for the event along with some Illamasqua freebies - the Bronzing Powder Duo is now part of my uni kit!

As soon as Alex began to create her piece the room fell completely silent, the audience was utterly captivated. She begun with a beautiful contour which extended from the face on to the upper chest, defining the models collarbone and creating an almost skeletal appearance. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera to the performance so the pictures on this post will mostly be my rubbish quality iPhone photos :(

Picture from @zoelondondj on Twitter

After the contouring was finished the piece looked quite futuristic and alien-esque. The model was then styled with a headpiece and the stage was decorated with large white balloons. Alex began to create an on-screen light display which was projected on to the model. This reflected beautiful, wild strokes of colour on to the piece. The act in itself exuded creative liberation through free, expressive movement of light and colour.

Photo taken from Alex Box's official Facebook page

I thought that the way the light moved across the screen was absolutely beautiful. So far the look had been based mainly around pale shades, and this explosion of colour completely illuminated the piece.

Once this stage of the performance was finished Alex began to create a second headpiece, using what looked like a pre-made plastic/resin headpiece as a base, which she then pressed white, grey and black play-doh on to. This gave a really beautiful textured effect which was reminiscent of reptilian scales. The monochromatic colour scheme was continued throughout the rest of the piece, as Alex then added black and white makeup using very free, experimental brush strokes.

After the base for the headpiece was applied

Application of the play-doh and graphic makeup

Progression of the styling

Once the play-doh headpiece was finished, Alex then used black and white spray paint all over the model. I thought this really gave the look a feeling of raw expression, and I love the way that so many different materials were combined to bring this piece together.

Photo from @zoelondondj on Twitter

After the performance was finished Alex took questions from the audience. When asked about the concept for this piece, she described it as a surrender to emotion translated through makeup and art. This piece was so expressive and I love the idea of using makeup as an emotionally liberating art form. One of the key things about this piece was for Alex to take a risk in front of a live audience, essentially to let go of any inhibitions and completely surrender herself to creative flow. Personally I think the final look was extremely successful, and the emotional aspect just gave it even more meaning and made each stage more poignant. The look was constantly changing and evolving and each stage significantly altered the appearance of the model.

Myself and Alex after the performance - it's always so lovely talking to her!

This performance was very inspirational and I'm so glad I was able to see it - it was exactly what I needed. After watching Alex at work I definitely want to experiment more with expressive makeup, and I love the idea of emotionally surrendering and channeling it through makeup, as I imagine it is an extremely liberating experience.