Is it a painting, a performance piece, or a photograph. Well it's actually all three. Alexa Meade is an artist based out of Washington DC that focuses on portraiture but sees it in a different way than most of us would. Meade chooses her subjects and creates a new "skin" for them by painting directly on their own skin with acrylic paint. She then paints the background and other objects in the same way. She is definitely giving a new meaning to the technique of Trompe-L’Oeil. By painting the 3D subjects in the way she does, she actually gives the illusion that they are 2D. This makes the viewer question reality and permanence. Meade creates her "paintings" and shows them for several hours but then the "second skin" is washed away, leaving only a photograph as proof. The photographs created from these scenes play on the tension of permanence and reality. They make the viewer ask "what is it?" At first glance the viewer will see the brushstrokes and think that they are looking at a painting but upon further examination the viewer realizes that the surface is smooth like a photograph and that there are a few objects in the pieces that do not have a painterly quality to them; such as the hair.
Here is her website to see more:
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ReplyDeletehttp://www.alexameade.com/about.html