Alexa Meade’s Living Paintings

Artist Alexa Meade paints right on the bodies and clothes of living models to create the illusion that they’re in 2D paintings. It’s not body art…it’s like living trompe-l’œil in reverse.

Yeah, those are all actual people painted and posed in front of painted backdrops. Here’s Meade posing with one of her models:

Meade did a TED talk about her work and also recently collaborated with Ariana Grande for her God is a woman video.

I first featured Meade’s work more than 8 years ago, so I figured it was time for a revisit. You can keep up with her stuff on Instagram or her website.

• Alexa Meade
• art

More living still lifes from Alexa Meade

Just got a note from Alexa Meade, whose work I featured on kottke.org two years ago. Since then, she’s been around the world working on her art; she’ll soon be in DC for an event at the National Portrait Gallery. I thought it would be fun to circle back and look at some of her work from the past two years.

Keep in mind that these are photographs of real people painted to look like paintings. In some ways, it’s more like sculpture than painting. This is Meade standing next to one of her subjects/objects:

You can see more of her work on her site or at Flickr.

• Alexa Meade
• art

Living still lifes

Remember the painting or reality post from a couple of weeks ago? Alexa Meade’s living still lifes are like that except better.

Here’s one of her works in progress. (thx, chris)

• Alexa Meade
• art