Veronique Branquinho’s woman is an intellectual, sensual and mysterious spirit – a modern day sear with a sense of whimsy, who assumes beautiful garments as an easy and natural adaptation to herself. She is playful in her second skin. So to capture this muse, this complex play of lightness and dark, it is often Alex Salinas whom Veronique asks to tell this story.

Born and raised in Antwerp and having studied at the Royal Academy of Arts in the same city, Alex’s own story is closely linked with the rise and rise of Belgium’s fashion history, and his friendship and work with Veronique Branquinho is no exception to that. In A#6, Alex’s work can be seen in the portraits of all Veronique’s ‘beautiful men’, and in the fashion feature ‘As Black As Midnight on a Moonless Night’.

Alex’s photography carries a strong visual identity that seems to suspend reality – a technically brilliant style that captures fluid moments and expression yet allows it a stark and static quality, as exhibited even in his own self portrait above (a pillow grazing his nose seems it could be stuck on the wall or suspended forever there with it’s strong shadow behind, yet also seems ready to make it’s inevitable contact with his face).

The accompanying photographs of ‘wall’ and ‘Isabelle’ are a quietly personal contribution, with the intimacy of a bedside table and a football poster and the messy blonde hair of Isabelle (as she is seemingly followed down the stairs) conveying a stark human experience – a lack of pretense or staging, further pushing the candid and honest nature of his work.

ALEX ON HER: refined, sensitive, perceptive, dark romantic, tenacious

SHE ON ALEX: boys will be boys, endearing, pleasure lover, fairy-tale like, honest

www.alexsalinas.com