Fascinated with classical art and the work of Michelangelo from a very young age, American painter Alexandra Becker-Black creates dream-like watercolours that seek to convey a quiet power and effortlessness in the same way that old masters did. Based in Portland, Oregon, the artist has developed her very own watercolour technique that is characteristic of the ethereal yet almost photographical portraits she creates. Becker-Black’s method of choice is a wet-on-wet technique, where pigments can be guided around while they are still wet — a process that as she says has a fluidity that interacts in interesting ways with the grace of the human figure. In her images, naked men and women are crowned with flowers and feathers or accompanied by birds — which according to the artist, this has nothing to do with portraying ‘‘the relationship between man and nature’’, but is rather a way to ‘‘simply show human figures in a pure and honest way, in a space that exists somewhere real but nowhere in particular.’’