Every artist has their medium. Caravaggio found light in oil on canvas. Dürer celebrated details in watercolors. Bourgeois brought humanity to marble and bronze.
Alexiades, Idriss, and Subbio sculpt with botulinum toxins and illuminate with hyaluronic acids. They probably won’t make it into Janson’s History of Art, but they’re three of the many dermatologists and plastic surgeons who are reimagining the planes of the face (and areas south) with their syringes. When injectables first arrived on the scene, they were viewed as a means to a “liquid face-lift.” Today, they’re a way to control light and shadows, to chisel angles, to round curves. And some of the doctors using them to the best effect have credentials beyond medical school. Exhibits A through C: Macrene Alexiades, a New York City dermatologist, is a trained sculptor; Shereene Idriss, also a New York City dermatologist, has a living room adorned with her own abstract paintings; and Christian Subbio, a Philadelphia plastic surgeon, almost headed to art school.