Welcome to the Doodle Shop

Alexander Proulx is self-taught, Chicago-based digital artist and painter who focuses on the figurative abstract. Alex’s handle is @Doodleyoodles on Instagram. He is also the artist responsible for The Doodle Shop.

 

 

     "When you think of a Doodle, you think of something drawn from boredom or idleness. A doodle is the mind’s raw expression of an idea.

    As a child, I was a doodler. My school notebooks are full of scratched out figures and abstract patterns. A recurring doodle in my notebooks is a dragon swimming across the paper, its head popping out of a line on the page and its body hidden below the surface. I would choose another plane and draw another segment of their form—imagining their body emerging and submerging. I was never taught how to render this; it simply was my mind’s expression of an idea.

    As a self-taught artist, the idea of “doodling”—or trying to execute an image that only exists in my mind’s eye—informs how I approach my work. I was not taught to draw based on referencing actual objects, and I have little formal training in technique. I draw what I see in my head. My approach is for the viewer to understand and connect with an idea, image, or feeling through color, brushstroke, and texture. Mastery of formal techniques is less central to my work.

     I enjoy Figurative Abstract, Street Art, Pop Art, Impressionism and Naïve art. These approaches tend to question the conventions of beauty and even what qualifies as "art.” They exist on the fringes or in some way challenge the status quo. At the same time, there is something intuitive and accessible in each. Their rawness is relatable, a quality I seek to reproduce in my work.

      A theme that I am interested in exploring with my work is how engaging with abstract art can help us to relate better to each other.”

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Alexander is a member of the Fulton Street Collective (Chicago) and you can check out his physical shop at Andersonville Galleria in the Andersonville neighborhood of Chicago.
Some recent projects include serving as a production artist for the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and recurring group shows at Chicago’s Fulton Street Collective, as well as collaboration with 3BR Distillery in Keyport NJ. His work was featured Workbox’s downtown Chicago spaces from 2021-2022.