If you’ve ever scrolled through Instagram’s explore page, you may have come across the dreamy yet remarkably realistic scenes created by 3D graphic artist Alexis Christodoulou. The Cape Town-based artist is known for his digital art that depicts an imaginary world of warm and pastel colours, minimalist architecture and natural landscapes.
While a copywriter at an advertising agency, Christodoulou began learning 3D rendering in his free time, following Youtube tutorials by Grey Scale Gorilla to guide the way. He started off rendering mini-golf courses before his imagination eventually took over, defining the distinct style he’s known for today. When asked how he made the transition from writer to 3D artist, Christodoulou credits his love for video games as being his initial infatuation with digital art. Inspired by their modern graphics and otherworldly scenes, Christodoulou sought to bring the same ethereal qualities to his work — from a Santorini-esque pool perched above the ocean to a sunken couch surrounded by lavender fields, the artist melds design, architecture and nature to create images straight out of a modern fairytale.
What first began as a hobby quickly developed into an artform, proof being Christodoulou’s Instagram account @teeealexis that has garnered 176k followers since his start eight years ago. It’s no secret that Instagram is the artist’s main outlet for sharing his work, along with his website alexiscstudio.com. But when asked about his relationship with the platform that catapulted him to fame, Christodoulou admits to having mixed feelings. “I’ve been so inextricably intertwined with social media from the beginning of this 3D journey that I’m not sure if it’s a helping hand or my main marketing. […] It really helped my momentum at the beginning of my journey with 3D. I think it’s changed a bit now. I think I work on images for Instagram now, instead of working on images and then using Instagram as the motivation to continue.”
Nonetheless, Christodoulou recognizes Instagram as his main source of inspiration. Among his design idols on the platform, he names players such as Barcelona-based design studio Six n Five, Wang and Soderstrom, Jack Sachs, Ignant, Charlotte Taylor, Studio Brasch, and Andrés Reisinger. The artist also credits architectects such as Tadao Ando, David Chipperfield and Aldo Rossi for inspiring his works. On his style, Christodoulou says, “the modernist architectural aesthetic was something that seemed to come naturally. Initially, I wanted to create images that felt a bit more organic but I didn’t have the skills yet, so a more geometric, almost brutalist style came out and developed from there.”
With his intuitive use of color, shapes and architectural concepts, Christodoulou’s 3D art is raw and organic, never failing to be aesthetically pleasing. Reminiscent of that dream vacation house that we could never afford, his work is realistically dreamy yet so out of reach — and we couldn’t love it more.
