WIRED and Porsche: Redefining Reality One Paint Stroke At A Time with Alexa Meade

Hemal Jhaveri joins Alexa Meade to explore how different tools can not only bring a vision to life, but also expand perspectives and inspire others.

September 14, 2022

No other artist is creating work quite like Alexa Meade - her art has been exhibited in space and she has even painted a globally renowned artist for a music video. Meade paints the human body and three-dimensional spaces and is a master at creating a particular illusion: making our three-dimensional reality look two-dimensional. Her work throws a wrench in how the human brain perceives the world and taking in one of her pieces will make you wonder whether you’re looking at a painting of a person or an actual person.

The Art of Drive brings us this conversation between Meade and WIRED Managing Editor Hemal Jhaveri, where we learn more about Meade’s process and how she uses creativity and technology to expand perspectives and inspire others.

Meade deeply embodies the spirit of The Art of Drive, a global platform designed to dive into the minds of this generation of changemakers in order to inspire the next through their boundary-pushing ideas and storytelling. By shining a light on innovation and thought leaders like Meade in The Art of Drive, Porsche hopes to inspire more creators to relentlessly pursue their big ideas. It’s a nod to Porsche's founder, Ferry Porsche, who didn’t see the car of his dreams out in the world so he created it himself.

Alexa Meade was originally planning on pursuing a career in politics, but pivoted and chose to become an artist instead. She didn’t know how to do that, so she taught herself the painting technique for which she’s now known. “I spent long hours in my parent’s basement making this stuff up as I went along, figuring out not only what does it take to create art, but how does a career as an artist work,” she says. Meade charted her own path. “Oftentimes, I was sidestepping the traditional art world to just go my own way independently,” says Meade. “It was hard - and tempting to fall back into what was familiar, but instead I took this weird path.”

Meade’s entire ethos is always to strive to step out into the unknown - that’s what drives her. “If I can foresee how something will turn out it’s far less interesting to me,” says Meade. “If I can’t pre-visualise it… I know that through the process of creating it I will see it.”

In this virtual briefing for The Art of Drive, Jhaveri and Meade discuss the science of human perception, how NFTs are democratising the art world and more.

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