The recent “Embodiment – a human canvas” event at Native Lounge in SLO reminded me of one of my favorite movies. It’s from the 90s and pretty cheesy. But there’s some spectacular artwork in it. One of the characters is an artist working on a calendar for an insurance company (if I remember correctly), one painting for each month. They are Trompe l’oeil murals with live models on painted backgrounds. The paintings in the movie are by artist Timna Woollards.
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Artist Alexa Mead does something quite similar – painting live models in front of a painted background. It is almost the opposite of a Trompe-l’œil (French for ‘trick the eye’), an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects appear in three dimensions, instead of actually being a two-dimensional painting. Mead and Woollards are painting real people to make them look like they are 2D.
Here’s one of my favorite Trompe-l’œils, “Escaping Criticism” by Pere Borrell del Caso:
And here is an example from Alexa Mead:
the process
the finished piece
the artist with model
Color me inspired. Gosh, I have to find some time to paint…
Oh, by the way, the movie is called “Where the heart is”, or “Die Zeit der bunten Vögel” in German (meaning “The time of the colorful birds”, which I find more fitting). And it is at the top of my Netflix list. 
