It's both.

http://www.mymodernm...ic-acrylic-body

Alexa Meade thinks completely backwards. Most artists use acrylic paints to create portraits of people on canvas. But not Meade - she applies acrylic paints on her subjects and makes them appear to be a part of the painting!

Meade is an installation artist based in the Washington, DC area. Her innovative use of paint on the three dimensional surfaces of found objects, live models, and architectural spaces has been incorporated into a series of installations that create a perceptual shift in how we experience and interpret spatial relationships.

I was lucky enough to catch up with Meade and ask her about her thought process. Here is what she said:

"I paint representational portraits directly on top of the people I am representing. The models are transformed into embodiments of the artist's interpretation of their essence. When captured on film, the living, breathing people underneath the paint disappear, overshadowed by the masks of themselves."

thats actually very interesting. would be kinda nice to see in person

Yeah, I remember posting a while back one of this artist's "works". It's cool to see a whole selection of them though. I agree too that it would be really great to watch/see in person!

i woudl be freaked out if i saw them in real life before reading this.

That is a really neat concept for painting. I like it. It is very different.

Its really well done too. I'm sure there were a few shocked reactions on the subway

Wow! That is so cool!

Isn't this from the same person who did that other one? Lol

can you imagine a group of people getting high and then running into one of these folks? man that would be way epic

That is absolutely amazing