Scarborough artist Chloe Alexia's career starts to take off as Hollywood calls and London exhibition beckons

She is bright, laughs easily and wears her heart on her sleeve.

Her pencil portraiture and her acrylic paintings are garnering attention. With a London exhibition on the horizon and commissions – including one from a Netflix star – her career is blossoming.

"It is mindboggling," said Chloe, who works from her Scarborough town-centre flat, her easel set up in the front bay window to catch the best of the daylight.

It is a permanent sadness that the people with whom she most wants to share her burgeoning success –her family – are estranged from her.

Chloe was brought up with her brother in Lincolnshire by parents who were Jehova's Witnesses. The religion has strict rules which as a teenager Chloe questioned and, unable to live within those rules, she left home. Chloe changed her name by deed poll. Alexia is a constriction of her middle name Alexandra.

"When I was 16 I thought this is not making sense to me. I was depressed and asked if I had God on my side why did I feel like this?"

With pocket money from her grandmother, she bought a bus ticket from Horncastle to Lincoln, got a job pot-washing for £3.20 an hour and sofa-surfed around the cathedral city for six months.

She met her husband-to-be on that bus and they married two years later when they were both aged 18. For various reasons, the marriage broke down and Chloe asked her husband, who she is in the process of divorcing, to leave.

At this time Chloe had three jobs – nursery nurse, helping children with special needs and then cleaning the school after lessons. They paid the rent on a house she loved.

"It was tough but I would not change anything. It has made me who I am."

It is sadly ironic that her talent comes from the father she never sees. She spent hours watching him paint, though he never sold his work, and he taught her to draw.

"He is the only artist who has inspired me. I want to show him I am carrying on his legacy. I have worked so hard to get my family's approval but I have no idea what is going on in their lives."

Three years ago, Chloe remembering Scarborough from a holiday she had there as a child, packed her bags and moved to the resort.

She is a regular at Esquires cafe in the Brunswick Shopping Centre, where she sits and draws for hours. She calls Indigo Alley in Marine Road her local and its regulars her family. "We have each other's backs," she said.

She has a part-time job at discount store The Works in Westborough and shares her flat with her three-month-old cat Morpheus, named after a character in the Netflix series The Sandman.

With her scarlet-painted nails and her eyes lined with black eye shadow and liner, she likes to be noticed.

She loves Games of Thrones. On one arm she has tattooed: Valar Morghulis – a traditional saying in its fictional land of Essos which translates as ‘all men must die’. On the other is the phrase used to answer it: Valar Dohaeas – ‘all men must serve’.

She does her own tattoos – she did an apprenticeship with a tattooist in Lincoln – and does body art.

Chloe did seven weeks in the art faculty of Lincoln University, and for the rest she is self-taught.

Encouragement came from another partner in a relationship that lasted eight months. "I was severely depressed for a long while. Then an ex-partner, who was a successful businessman, saw me drawing. He said 'Chloe you can make money out of this if you take these steps'. I did what he said and it went from there.

"It also helped me with my mental health. I can channel everything into it. I can zone out for eight hours at a time. That is why I like doing it so much."

Art now comes first. She broke an engagement and gave up a job to leave more time for her art.

She is working on her submissions for the Parallax Art Fair, Europe's largest fair for independent artists and designers, at Kensington Town Hall in February.

Croatian actor Goran Visnjic – who played Dr Luka Kovas in ER – follows her on Instagram. He called while she was at Esquires, to commission her to draw portraits for his next Netflix series. Chloe is sworn to secrecy over details.

New York-based podcast Buck the System, hosted by Buck Grottano, has interviewed her and wants her to go to Manhattan to appear in person.

She has finished a mural – Medusa – for Indigo Alley and calligraphy at the Highlander and has accepted a £10,000 commission for a bowling alley in Selby.

Her social media savvy is driving her success. A Tik Tok of her day at Esquires included a portrait of actor Johnny Depp.

Orders for prints poured in and within days she had £1,000 she needed for the deposit and first month's rent for her flat.

"I am concentrating on my paintings for the exhibition in Kensington. It is so exciting and a great opportunity.

"I am hoping there are art scouts out there who will love what I do. As for what the next few years hold, I would love to live in London or New York.”