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ArtsPiece: Alexa Meade Colors Outside the

Lines

Artist Alexa Meade

Artist Alexa Meade. Photography by Mark Seliger

The Body As Canvas

In some ways, artist Alexa Meade is a traditional figure painter, replicating the light and shadow that falls on the human body in a naturalistic way. But she works on an unusual canvas: the actual human body. And she takes a classical concept — trompe l’oeil, the art of making a two-dimensional representation look three-dimensional — and turns it on its head. Her aim is to do the opposite, to collapse depth and make her living models into flat pictures. (See "In Reverse Trompe L’Oeil (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/out-of-reverse-trompe-loeil-a-new-living-art/) ")

BLUE PRINT, 8'x8'x4' Installation

Alexa Meade's approach to making art is all encompassing. The artist identifies a topic or subject for her photographed installations and then creates the installation by covering everything in paint—walls, floors, furniture, people. Meade's approach has been described as creating "a mask of paint that mimics what's below it" (See "Your Body Is My Canvas (http://www.ted.com/talks/alexa_meade) "). In 2012, Meade participated in Wired 2012, a two-day event that took place in London. The artist spoke about the evolution of her artistic process and why she wants to challenge how people perceive themselves by challenging them to "color outside the lines" (See "2012 Talk About Art, Humans, and Milk" (http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-10/25/alexa-meade-3d-artist) )

Artist Alexa Meade: There is another, better path somewhere ahe…

Wired 2012 presentation in which Alexa Meade speaks about "coloring outside the lines."

There is a wonderful article available at PBS.org (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/out-of-reverse- trompe-loeil-a-new-living-art/) that explores Meade's unconventional transformation of the very conventional notion of figure painting. The article was first published in 2011 when Meade was just 24. Meade's work frequently draws comparison with trompe l’oeil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe-

Meade's work frequently draws comparison with trompe l’oeil (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompe- l'%C5%93il) , a very old form of painting that uses realistic imagery to create optical illusions:

In some ways, artist Alexa Meade is a traditional figure painter, replicating the light and shadow that falls on the human body in a naturalistic way. But she works on an unusual canvas: the actual human body. And she takes a classical concept — trompe l’oeil, the art of making a two-dimensional representation look three-dimensional — and turns it on its head. Her aim is to do the opposite, to collapse depth and make her living models into flat pictures.

Meade’s innovative approach to traditional portraiture comes from her interest in transforming the person in front of her. As her model is part of the art, the portrait is both personal, and yet transcendent; he or she “looks like a painting rather than something that occupies space.” (See "In Reverse Trompe l'oeil (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/out-of-reverse-trompe-loeil-a-new-living-art/) ")

Alexa Meade shares her work and discusses a new project with a TED audience.

Alexa Meade Your body is my canvas