Stop and Stare

Alexa Meade's art is a new form of body paint. It is an illusion. She combines reality with creativity to create something in between: the real world with specks of the unexplained creeping through.

Instead of painting directly on a canvas, she paints on objects, changing the object from something in the real world to a piece of art. Instead of painting fruit on canvas she will literally paint fruit. Instead of painting a two-dimensional woman, she will actually paint a woman--Meade takes the brush to the woman's skin and paints.

When her work is photographed, everything she painted looks real, and often stands in stark contrast to the photographed people and places surrounding the subject. Meade captures the struggle of everyday life and draws attention to it. She ensures that you notice the lines of exhaustion on an old man's face as he stands on a subway, the sadness in a young woman's eyes from the way her eyebrows form on her face, another woman's despair as she sits, half-naked in an art gallery, head bowed and staring at her hands.

      

Through her art, Meade forces you to stop and look at what you try to ignore, what you attempt to pass by without a glance: struggle, truth, despair. She doesn't allow you to ignore it. She does this by using the magic of paint, of her hand, of her imagination. Meade applies art and creativity to the real world, creating the illusion that a man from a painting came to life, climbed out of his canvas, and now explores the streets.

 Meade doesn't allow you to ignore the pain and struggle because she creates something that causes you to look twice; you can't simply walk by without a glance because curiosity and enchantment with the unexplained, the unknown, the magic draws you in and makes you stop and stare.

To see more of Meade's art, go here: http://alexameade.com/portfolio.html