Alex Face

Thai street artist Alex Face is synonymous with spray-painted canvases, murals and bronze sculptures featuring world-weary children in fuzzy animal costumes — totemic cherubs originally inspired by the artist’s daughter, Mardi. “I paint little children because they represent the future,” he says.

Alex (born Patcharapol Tangruen) discovered American graffiti art while studying fine arts at Bangkok's King Mongktut University Institute of Technology, and honed his craft working for a Thai company that sold reproductions of Impressionist-era paintings. Alex first exhibited at Vertical Gallery in 2019, co-headlining the exhibit ‘Mythical Creatures’ opposite fellow Bangkok artist MUEBON, and returned in mid-2022 for ‘FACES,’ his first full-gallery solo show on U.S. shores. Alex made his New York City solo debut with 2024’s Vertical showcase ‘Impressions,’ which projected his signature characters into dreamlike landscapes inspired by Claude Monet and other fin-de-siècle French masters. Alex has also contributed to Vertical’s group shows ‘Atomic Number 13’ (2021) and ‘Ode To…’ (2023) in addition to solo outings in Los Angeles and Singapore, and his work resides in MOCA Bangkok’s permanent collection.