Patcharapol Tangruen, also known as Alex Face, is regarded as a quietly thoughtful presence in contemporary street art. Trained in Bangkok in fine and applied arts, he began his practice in the early 2000s, gradually shifting from lettering to a figurative focus. His enduring signature character—a small child in a rabbit suit—carries an emotional weight connecting innocence and contemplation.
Alex Face. Summer 2025 residency at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
His work consistently blends the immediacy of Street Art with a calm, painterly sensibility. He can create large-scale public paintings with a sense of focus, embedding his character and imagined story into the environment. His projects have traveled beyond Thailand, appearing across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
Caminhos Esquecidos is his first fully realized solo show in Portugal, conceived during a residency at The Holdout Art Farm on the Silver Coast. As he pedaled through orchards and along the shoreline, Alex Face translated the subtle light, weathered surfaces, and hushed corners of rural Portugal into ten new paintings. In each, his familiar figure appears as a reflective observer—quietly acknowledging the land, its textures, the lingering stillness.
Alex Face. Summer 2025 residency at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Summer 2025 residency at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Camino da Rua Capela. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Moinhos do Rio das Antas. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Esquinas das Casas Brancas. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Ruinas da Rua do Salgueiral. Caminhos Esquecidos. Andenken Gallery at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. Summer 2025. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Kids enjoying Alex’s outdoor painting in Alcobaca. Summer 2025 residency at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the gallery)Alex Face. Completed mural in Alcobaca. Summer 2025 residency at The Holdout Art Farm, Portugal. (photo courtesy of the gallery)
Aunt Marge is on the phone to see if your mom can locate the recipe for the cranberry relish dish that she made last year – the one with the grapefruit and fresh ginger. While you’re talking to her she reports that your quirky cousin Kinnisha has just announced that she is a vegan so she won’t be eating any animal products at Thanksgiving this Thursday. Not a big surprise.
We’re making sweet potatoes with marshmallows melted on top; what are you bringing? Don’t forget that dinner is at 12 noon this year because Juan and Erica and their new baby have to go to his parents for a second Thanksgiving dinner at 4 pm – and that’s all the way in Jersey.
Speaking of food, the jokes write themselves sometimes in the headlines this week – Just as the President-Elect says that he’ll announce a state of emergency to boot out illegal immigrants, bottom-line-conscious Americans who are already stretched too thin financially are learning how this action may impact prices at the store and across the economy.
Some folks are concerned that raising tariffs will cause companies to cancel Christmas bonuses because they need to buy up supplies before tariffs hit – which doesn’t sound very Christmassy. Nor does Walmart’s announcement this week that they may need to raise prices if those tariffs happen in the new year.
Aren’t you supposed to wait until your candidate has been sworn into office before having buyer’s remorse?
Also, according to conversations on Twitter this week, many folks didn’t realize that the evil Obamacare is the same thing as their prized ACA health insurance. Huh. Who knew?
Meanwhile in New York we are excitedly looking for newly financed housing thanks to the Mayor, and the NYC Documentary Festival had great screenings this week: One that examines our city’s 1970s chaotic bankruptcy and corruption called Drop Dead City(spoiler; the city had no accounting books), and one called Slumlord Millionaire. New York is always a love/hate romance, no?
Meanwhile, the current president is giving ‘permission’ to Ukraine to use long-range weapons deep into Russian territory. Great way to kick off a legacy before you leave office! What could go wrong?
This week, we’ll ignore all that when we line the streets for the Annual Thanksgiving Day Parade through Manhattan. Hope its not too windy for those massive balloons and that Santa shows up at the end of the show! Also, keep your eyes open for hot, blushing babes in ribbed turtlenecks and Santa hats on streets, subways, Knicks games at the Garden, on the skating rinks in Central Park, Bryant Park, and Rockefeller Center. Something about the holidays melts hearts, even though it’s freezing outside. Wishing you all the best – stay safe and warm, say hi to Aunt Marge for us, and keep your eyes open for stupendous street art and graffiti.
Here’s our weekly conversation with the street, this week featuring: John Ahearn, Atomik, Cody James, Great Boxers, Carnivorous Flora, Alex Face, Felipe Umbral, LeCrue Eyebrows, Zimer NYC, Julia Cocuzza, JKE, Fern El Pepe, and Katya Gotseva.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening: Bomb It 2 by Jon Reiss launches and Sampo Graffiti: Ignoto from Brazil.
BSA Special Feature: Bomb It 2
by director Jon Reiss
About to debut in August and through the fall, the sequel to the global graffiti documentary Bomb It travels to a number of far-flung cities you are vaguely aware of, much less imagine as locations of a graffiti or Street Art scene. In fact, one of the strengths of this movie is the subtle and not-so-subtle imparting of the realities of daily life elsewhere that are revealed while in the course of tracking graffiti and Street Art. Yes, Street Art makes a much heavier impression in this tale than one might expect from a movie called Bomb It 2, but don’t let terminology blind you from seeing the people behind the paint.
Using a tiny camera that jumps to the beat of the always-gyrating soundtrack, Reiss takes you to the Palestinian refugee camps on the West Bank and you can feel the utterly constrictive hand around your neck while people nervously paint at night under guard. A short time later you learn the details of the brutal punishment called caning as it applies to graffiti writers in Singapore. Next you are in Thailand where painting on a wall almost feels like a spiritual practice. As much as graff writers like to generalize about the “rules” of graffiti in your city, the Bomb It movies tell you that they don’t apply universally.
Of course it doesn’t pretend to interview every single writer and Street Artist in every single city on the globe (as will be a critique no doubt), but that would require a movie that is 400 hours long. However you will witness the intensity of feelings that bombing/painting/pasting evokes in people and see the fierce devotion that some writers have, learn how it can be an art practice or an act of pure defiance, and hear at least one writer say unequivocally that graffiti saved his life.
With scenes from previously unexplored areas of the Middle East, Europe, Asia, the United States and Australia – Bomb it 2 represents a wide range of cultures, styles and beliefs and includes interviews with Klone, Know Hope, Great Bates, Twoone, Darbotz, Killer Gerbil and Zero, Bon, Alex Face, Sloke, Husk Mit Navn, Ash, Phibs, Stormie Mills, Beejoir, Zero Cents, Vexta, MIC, and Xeme, and many more.
Here is a small trailer for you, but for the full show you still have a few days to wait.
SAMPA GRAFFITI / Ignoto
A new installment from a series that focuses on graffiti artists in São Paulo, here is a relaxed installation from Ignoto. The laidback style of his whole approach tells you he’s chilled and the action on the street is unusual because steps away from him are a handful of kids flying kites while he does his work. Click on the CC at the bottom to see a translation of Ignoto’s thoughts on graffiti and art in general.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
