Lipstick Lex shares the love in her art – Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Lipstick artist Alexis Fraser opens new gallery in Sarasotas Rosemary District

Lipstick Lex: Opens with a reception from 4-8 p.m. Saturday at 1419 Fifth St., Unit A, Sarasota. Reservations are required at lipsticklex.com/tickets. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tues.-Thurs. and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Fri.-Sat. The gallery is closed Sunday and Monday. 941-330-9999; lipsticklex.com

Just about every piece of art created by Lipstick Lex is sealed with a kiss. Usually hundreds of them.

Lipstick Lex is the name adopted by Alexis Fraser for the artwork she creates with various colors of lipstick, a method and style she began experimenting with about eight years ago. Around 2015, she began branding herself as Lipstick Lex and finding an audience for her work, including actress Michelle Dockery (Lady Mary on Downton Abbey).

Next weekend, she hopes to broaden her audience with the opening of her new Lipstick Lex gallery on Fifth Street in the Rosemary District in a space that was once home to Alfstad& Contemporary gallery.

I wanted to be downtown. I didnt want to be in a strip plaza in the suburbs. I wanted to be where there was a kind of urban, cool energy about it, and I like Rosemary District, she said. I see its transforming to this really cool up and coming neighborhood.

Her prime audience is females 24-50, and she senses a kind of younger vibe happening here, so it feels fitting. This place just popped.

She and her husband, Josh Fraser, who is now working with her to run the gallery, had been looking for a space for about 18 months when someone mentioned the new location.

Everything about it was screaming at me, she said. I did a drive-by, looked through the windows and fell in love with it. Everything about my intuition told me to go for it. Well, the good shoulder said to do this and the other shoulder was saying youre crazy.

The storefront gives her a light-filled space to work by the front windows, where anyone passing by can see her containers of assorted lipstick colors, makeup brushes, an easel and the clayboard that she uses instead of more traditional canvas.

He husband crafted giant lipstick sculptures that stand by the front door. Lips are everywhere, from pillow cushions to art on the walls. Upstairs is an area designed as a playroom for their two children, 6-year-old Rue and 2 -year-old Lonnie.

And when you look closely at the paintings, youll see dozens of her lip prints decorating the large images of Lady Gaga, Maya Angelou, Janis Joplin, Rosa Parks, Madonna, Sophia Loren and more.

I really love pop culture and icons who have inspired me somewhere along lifes journey, she said. People who have a really powerful message. I paint to share the love of people who have shared messages of self love and personal empowerment.

Her work generally sells from $1,000 to $20,000.

Portraiture is her favorite style, but she also does other things that embody beauty and nature. Ive done some city skylines for different cities.

She describes the kisses on the artwork as light pecks. Its just like kissing a baby or a grandmother.

Fraser got a degree in fine art and a masters in secondary education.

My plan was to teach art. Thats what society led me to believe was the wiser choice, she said. But just as she was applying for jobs, her Canadian-born husband got a job offer in Toronto, where she was unable to work.

That was a blessing in disguise because I started creating a lot of work, doing a lot of unconventional art. I wanted to have fun with it and differentiate myself as an artist, she said.

Fraser made time-lapse YouTube videos of creating paintings with beer and wine, or dancing on a canvas with paint on her feet.

Then she tried lipstick for a portrait of Marilyn Monroe. I wanted something non-traditional that would correlate with Marilyn, using something feminine. She added lipstick kisses to the painting and the seed was planted.

Initially her artwork was made entirely of kisses in bright red lipstick.

They were kind of flat, not really any dimension or depth to the art work and no color palette, she said. Eventually she added a full color palette to her work. I allowed myself to draw with lipstick. I use the stick and then use brushes to smear or smudge it.

Working with lipstick is not much different than using oil-based paints, she said.

In places, she draws directly on the clayboard. Or, shell rub a makeup brush across the oily stick and then dab or swipe it across the board. She also uses the brushes to create texture, with the lipstick marks placed directly on the board.

In one painting on the gallery wall, rays of color burst out of a hand. The colors are darker at the edges and fade toward the middle. She created the look by kissing the edges with fresh lipstick and continuing to kiss the board toward the middle as the lipstick faded.

Because lipstick never really dries, she has experimented with different finishing processes. She started with a resin coating that creates a shiny look on the surface.

Now, about once a week, she takes new work to an auto body shop where they cover the images with a standard auto clear coat, just as they would on a car.

Its a little less shiny. One of my girlfriends suggested it.

Many of the paintings for sale are large, but Fraser said she can only make them so big. My lips can get tired.

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Lipstick Lex shares the love in her art - Sarasota Herald-Tribune