Alexa Meade: Painting on People

I love it when art plays with your expectations, completely catching you off guard and ripping away what you thought you knew. I think one of the best examples of this can be found in Alexa Meade.

I first found out about Alexa in an issue of Nylon magazine last year. Completely amazed by the pictures of her work that accompanied the article, I could not stop looking at them.

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"Alexa Split in Two"

This piece gives you an idea of how awesome and breathtaking her style is.

The 25 year old artist paints directly on her subjects, creating 2 dimensional representations of the person on their own 3 dimensional form. Her website describes her work as lying at "the intersection of painting, photography, performance, and installation.

When she paints somebody, she will often also paint the background, completely involving the atmosphere in the painting.

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"Aligned"

It blows my mind that this is an actual man sitting here. Way too cool, no?

Sometimes she will also take her subject and place them as an installation in an everyday place.

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"Transit"

What would you do if you saw a painted old man on the subway? I love the juxtaposition here of the surrealism of the man and the realism of the world around him .

I think that Alexa Meade is really unique and that her style is fresh and innovative. If you're looking for a new artist crush, definitely check her out.

-Julia Jessen