Alfred Presents: JL Maxcy — Artist Showcase

Right now

The work · 2022–2025

Thirteen imagined likenesses, painted from text alone

Imagined likenesses from text alone

Anon

“I never met them in person. I never saw a picture of them from real life. I rarely heard their voices. I asked them many questions and read about how they described their hopes, fears, politics, favourite foods, etc. This is how I imagine the Anons of Web3.”

— JL Maxcy, Anon series statement, jlmaxcy.com/section/527440-Anon.html, accessed 2026-08-21

13 subjects painted60–76cm on canvas2022–2025 ongoing

Renaissance masters, recast for child-free women

Childfree Madonnas

“Borrowing from Italian Renaissance paintings, 'Childfree Madonnas' uses historical visuals of virtue and generosity to elevate modern women. Specifically, those women who purposely choose to live child-free early in the 21st century, believing they are preserving resources, reducing carbon emissions and working towards a more sustainable tomorrow by mothering the Earth.”

— JL Maxcy, Childfree Madonnas series statement, jlmaxcy.com/section/491166-Childfree%20Madonnas.html, accessed 2026-08-21

9 worksSOLD OUTFoundation.app offline 2026

Portraits of the NFT figures she met along the way

Whales and Grails

“Some characters I met along my journeys.”

— JL Maxcy, Whales and Grails series statement, jlmaxcy.com/section/547053-Whales%20and%20Grails.html, accessed 2026-08-21

5 works to date62×62cm acrylic on canvas2026 current

A painter trained at UT Arlington who showed in galleries across North America and Europe, then turned the portrait tradition on the most anonymous community she could find. The Anon series — acrylic faces built from text impressions, never from photographs — applies the oldest figurative format to identities that deliberately have no face. Her primary sales platform, Foundation.app, shut down in 2026, removing the only secondary-market infrastructure she had. The body of work continues regardless: Whales and Grails is her active 2026 series.

In her words

Portrait painter of the unnamed

It may be a painting blue cats and yellow bears, but I'm still painting portraits of humans.

JL Maxcy, Cool Portraits series statement, jlmaxcy.com, accessed 2026-08-21

I never met them in person. I never saw a picture of them from real life. I rarely heard their voices. I asked them many questions and read about how they described their hopes, fears, politics, favourite foods, etc. This is how I imagine the Anons of Web3.

JL Maxcy, Anon series statement, jlmaxcy.com, accessed 2026-08-21

While daydreaming of different pasts and hoping for auspicious futures, I found myself escaping our present. I began to see time as a wave and like an accordion, I compressed that wave until the crests and troughs were superimposed.

JL Maxcy, Past Peasants' Futures series statement, jlmaxcy.com, accessed 2026-08-21

Follow this practice as it moves.

Alfred tracks the Anon and Whales and Grails series — when a confirmed secondary-market slug becomes available, floor and sales appear here.

Track JL Maxcy in Alfred