TED: Visual Artist Alexa Meade Paints Portraits Of People On People

Alexa Meade’s portraits spring from a long-term fascination with the illusions inherent in representational media. Rather than paint on canvas, she applies paint directly to her subjects — the people, as well as the objects surrounding them and the background. She then photographs the ephemeral installation/painting. The resulting optically treacherous portraits collapse the subject, foreground and background into one continuous plane, challenging the perceptual boundaries between 2D and 3D.

Alexa Meade website