Alex Black and the Performance of Beauty in an Age of Visual Saturation
Through staged photography and AI-generated symbols, Canadian director Alex Black reimagines identity and desire—while exposing the unsustainable systems behind how beauty is made and sold.
“Identity is a script.” Alex Black’s debut book Scripted exposes the performance behind beauty
What is beauty, and who decides? For director and photographer Alex Black, the answer lies not in aesthetics, but in performance. Her debut book, Scripted, is a deep dive into the visual fictions we live by—those we wear, desire, and believe in. Blurring the language of commercial photography and cinematic portraiture, Black builds seductive images that twist the familiar into something unsettling, asking the viewer: what are we really looking at—and why?
“Identity is a script. You build it piece by piece. Beauty becomes part of that script—and brands exploit this. That’s why I wanted the book to look like commercial photography, even when it’s weird or subversive.”
Deconstructing beauty through images: the concept behind Scripted
Beauty, for Black, is not a static concept or an ideal to pursue—it’s a socially scripted fiction. Scripted doesn’t aim to define beauty, but rather to explore how it’s constructed and consumed. Drawing from film, advertising, and pop culture, the book dissects the aspirational self through a series of staged, performative images.
“We think beauty is subjective, but there are so many layers to it. Cultural background, visual memory—even advertising—shapes what we find attractive. The idea was to explore beauty without trying to define it.”
Using glossy surfaces, cinematic lighting, and hyper-stylized compositions, Black mirrors the aesthetic codes of commercial photography—but always introduces an element of disruption: grotesque props, contorted bodies, uncanny scenarios. It’s a visual language that seduces first, then unsettles.
“Sometimes you’ll see something and feel like you’ve seen it before—but you can’t put your finger on it. That’s the tension I like to create. Nothing is really meant to be anything.”
Using AI to exaggerate desire and expose the absurd
Artificial intelligence plays a bold role in Scripted, not as a gimmick, but as an extension of Black’s visual vocabulary. She uses generative tools to design surreal objects—perfectly manicured nails, glossy perfume bottles—that mimic the seductive aesthetics of consumer desire, pushing them toward absurdity.
“All AI does is regurgitate. I gave it my language, my visual vocabulary. In a way, it became an extension of me. I wanted to see how far we could go visually, where beauty tips into absurdity. The idea is to show what AI can do—I believe that’s far more interesting than pointing out its risks. At the end of the day, progress goes on no matter what.”
A visual universe shaped by displacement, adaptation, and intuition
Black’s work is grounded in a transitory, multicultural experience. Raised in Montreal, she moved through Toronto, New York, London, and now Paris—each city leaving a trace in her evolving visual identity.
“I learned to become a chameleon,” she says. “I was introduced to new languages and cultures. I had to learn to integrate, but at the same time, I always felt like an outsider.”
It’s this duality—belonging and estrangement—that underpins her approach. Her images absorb local codes, but always remain slightly detached. They become translations, not replications.
How research, abstraction, and emotional tension shape her creative process
Though intuitive, Black’s process is deeply rooted in research. Archives, advertising, street ephemera, and art history—particularly abstract expressionism—serve as her visual lexicon.
“Nothing is truly original. Everything builds off something else. We draft something by building upon an already existing iconography. Personally, I love digging into archives, understanding the puzzle of past aesthetics and how they’ve evolved.”
There’s a constant pull between opposites in her work: high and low, minimal and excessive, familiar and strange. Living in Paris added new layers of subtlety and restraint.
“In New York, I was drawn to street culture. It was loud, graphic, immediate. In Paris, I rediscovered subtlety. The way femininity is expressed here, the attention to detail, the idea that restraint can be powerful.”
After years of experimentation with scanners and alternative mediums, she’s returned to the fundamentals of photography—though always with a questioning gaze.
“I’m in a phase where I ask myself: what does it mean to make a photograph? Not just take one. What is the image doing? How does it communicate?”
Fashion as language: decoding utility, aesthetics, and cultural meaning
Fashion is not just subject matter for Black—it’s a way of seeing. Her background in fashion continues to inform how she understands form, utility, and cultural symbolism. Her images move across platforms and contexts: editorials, commercials, music, social commentary.
“What I love about fashion is that it has a function. You wear it. It’s not just creative; it moves through the world. So it carries this duality of practical and artistic—something other disciplines do not have.”
Her fashion images don’t live in sterile white cubes; they exist in movement, shaped by the same codes they interrogate.
Turning a concept into an object: the materiality of the book Scripted
Beyond visual language, Scripted is a physical object—meticulously produced in collaboration with Sophie Gaten, who directed the photo shoots, and Purple Martin Studio, which oversaw production. Black took a hands-on approach to material decisions: ink, texture, weight, and tactility were all part of the storytelling.
“I learned so much—about paper, ink, weight, texture. We chose a matte newspaper stock, which feels soft but holds the print well. The tactile element became another layer of storytelling. A beauty book isn’t just visual—it becomes an object. It can be touched, carried, forgotten somewhere. That transforms it into a new kind of experience.”
The launch at Galerie Au Roi in Paris was accompanied by a multi-sensory exhibition: photographs reimagined as sculptural installations, giving viewers a tangible, immersive experience.
Confronting sustainability and contradictions within fashion photography
Black doesn’t shy away from acknowledging the contradictions of her field. Photography—especially within fashion—is often entangled with waste, speed, and overproduction.
“The sad thing is: photography is not kind to the environment,” she says. “Especially in fashion. There’s shipping, styling, printing. Cameras themselves, particularly analog ones, are resource-heavy.”
Her approach is humble but conscious.
“It can’t be just one person trying. I do my best on a small scale—but the entire industry has to shift its pillars.”
Embracing ambiguity, triggering questions, and disrupting visual certainty
Through Scripted, Black offers viewers a place to pause and reflect. Her images don’t impose ideology or deliver easy answers. They pose questions—about desire, identity, originality—and embrace ambiguity as a productive space.
In a world overwhelmed by images, Alex Black insists on visual awareness: of cultural scripts, media language, historical memory, and the strange, fragile things we choose to desire.
Alex Black
Alex Black is a Canadian director and photographer based in Paris. Having moved through cities including Montreal, London, New York, and Paris, she learned to balance adaptation with radical self-expression. A self-taught photographer, her process is rooted in experimentation, abstraction, and disruption. Her dreamlike visual language often questions the very nature of perception and identity, using fashion as a tool of distortion and symbolic effect.
Purple Martin
Purple Martin is a premier post-production studio redefining fashion, art, and commercial imagery by championing creativity and cultural nuance. With a team of globally acclaimed artists and editors, the studio brings expertise in image refinement and storytelling, collaborating with boundary-pushing brands and creators. Their work celebrates craftsmanship, emotion, and innovation across platforms.
