Laura’s Team Pick:
My best friend from high school is back in town for the summer, which means that I get to spend the next couple of months in the company of one of the most smartest and well-read people I know. We live in different Internet neighborhoods, so she’s also really good at clueing me in to the stuff I missed. Alexa Meade is one of those things.
She paints people. Like really paints them. Using their bodies and clothes as a canvas, she turns living, breathing humans into graphic acrylic portraits.
The illusion is mind-bending. For every new picture I see, it takes me at least a couple of minutes before I can convince myself that what I’m looking at is actually a painting on top of a person. Alexa’s work was shown on June 6th at the National Portrait Gallery in an interactive (and very temporary) installation called “Portraits After 5: Camera-Ready Color.” Viewers were invited into the space and asked to interpret the exhibition for themselves by taking photos.
While the exhibit was only around for a day, you can check out Alexa’s work through her camera lens over at her Flickr page.
