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Alexa Meade is an innovative new voice on the DC Art Scene. A visual artist who is breaking new ground, Meade is combining photography, painting, performance, and installation to provide a rich, multi-layered, multi-process construct that is challenging the way that viewers think about and perceive art.

Alexa is a self-taught photographer and painter. Her studies at Vassar College allowed her to dabble in sculpture and drawing, but focused squarely upon Political Science (BA, 2009). Interested in art, Meade created works as a hobby that existed on the periphery of her life. The achievement of graduation and the safety that a degree provided, as Meade tells it, presented her with the opportunity to take a risk. Alexa decided to focus her creativity, time, and thoughts on experimenting with art, abandoning a conventional career to discover, “the path that would be my dream.”

The explorations of shadow through photography were the focus of Alexa’s earliest studies. This eventually evolved to covering entire inanimate objects, and the clothing and the skin of her models with paint. Meade’s pieces were brought by Martin Irvine into the space of his gallery, Irvine Contemporary (http://irvinecontemporary.com/index.php) and serve to educate, inspire, and entertain the community. Those who were present for the few performances housed within the space had the privilege of watching the work develop and witnessing the breakdown of traditional barriers through dynamic and thoughtful means. 

Meade’s profile in the art world has been on the rise as of late thanks in part to the working relationship she has built with Irvine Contemporary (the gallery which represents her). This relationship has been vital to providing Meade with time, the most essential component to any artist’s process. According to Lauren Gentile, ISA Director, Irvine Contemporary: “The gallery acts as the artist’s agent, managing the business and public relations aspects of their career… and by selling the art works to an established network of regional, national and international clientele institutions, and respected leaders in the art collecting community, we provide the artist with an income…so they can continue to work and focus on the creative process.”