Alexa Meade is another artist from
Tumblr and I accidently came across her art while I was slacking off at work
and looking at my dashboard on Tumblr. I know a lot of the artist I post about
are from Tumblr, but I feel like that’s where the most interesting and creative
people are that no one knows about yet.
This piece is titled Transit, by Alexa Meade. Looking at
it, the viewer would think it’s a painted portrait photoshopped into a picture
of people on a bus. Well that would be incorrect. Alexa Meade actually paints
her models and puts them in a setting. This man was actually painted and then
she photographed him on the bus.
I
love the different layers of color she used to actually paint the model. It
does have a painting look to it. She had to highlight and darken every
plane-change and wrinkle on the model. I like that her canvas is an actual 3D
surface instead of a typical 2D canvas or paper. The only thing I don’t like
about it is how you can tell the man isn’t an old man. He just looks like a
younger person made to look old and it doesn’t look very convincing.
This one is titled Portrait of a Self-Portrait which
means that Alexa actually painted herself for this one. I usually love the
layers of color and how they look like they’re just slashed on, but in this
one, I really don’t. I feel like she does a better job painting other people.
The shadows and highlights are a little off and you can tell she’s a painted
person. The yellow she used looks really out of place.
Overall,
I like the idea of this one and I like the rug or blanket in the background. I
think it adds more color to the picture. Even her hair’s okay, but the
highlights and shadows on the face don’t match the highlights in her hair. I
think it was just a little more difficult for her to paint herself than it is
for her to paint other people. I give
her kudos for her attempting it though.
This last image is titled
Concealed and the woman in the picture looks like she’s concealed with a tarp
or blanket. The colors are a lot better in this image than they were in the
previous one. The shadows and highlights make more sense and the clothing
enhances that. You can tell the background was painted on, but the tarp or
concealer is harder to tell. I can’t tell if it’s painted on or a real object.
I
love how the tarp or whatever it is frames the portrait in a creative way. It
makes the picture more interesting. The only flaw in this one is that she didn’t
really paint the hand in the bottom right corner. The hand looks like it wasn’t
painted like the rest of the woman’s body. For some reason, it bothers me a
little bit.
Most of the time, my artwork reflects my mood or my
interests at the time. When I was going
through a bad break-up I was drawing a lot of skulls and body parts; most of it
was morbid things. I went through a phase after a break-up where I was drawing human
hearts in the weirdest ways possible. I drew this one heart to look like a tree
frog pattern with a tree frog coming out of it. I went through another phase
where I wanted to draw was flowers and plants. They weren’t the typical roses
and tulips though. I was drawing orchids and Venus flytraps with insects in
them.
My
school projects even reflect my moods and interests. My grandmother had died
over winter break, so when we returned for the spring semester, my teacher set
up a still life with a bunch of different objects, one of which was a cow
skull. I was obsessed with this skull to the point I made my 6 drawing series
about this skull. I think it was the line between life and death that I liked
about it, especially because in some weird way, it gave me some reassurance
that my grandmother was still with me. It was just a comforting idea that even
when someone or something dies, pieces of them are still left behind.
I
really can’t just draw a pretty thing and leave it at that. There always has to
be some strange, misplaced object in what I’m doing to make it part of me. My
self-portrait for my Digital Concepts class had all of these pretty objects
displayed in my hands except for this eyeball with the muscles attached to it.
In this other self-portrait I had to do in Illustrator, I drew myself as a rag
doll instead of taking a picture of myself and just making it realistic. My
artwork needs to have that one piece that really makes it mine, and usually
that’s something gross or creepy even.
It always needs something strange and unusual because to quote Lydia
from Beetlejuice, “I myself am
strange and unusual.”
