Help, I’m Stuck
in a Painting!
When the real world looks like FlatlandP
igment on canvas can be so vivid, with
brushstrokes so precise, that viewers may
need to remind themselves that they are
looking at depictions of life, rather than life itself.
Trompe l’oeils (from the French “deceives the
eye”) are spectacular examples of the sort of ar-
tistic deception in which a photorealistic portrayal
of a bowl of fresh berries can be nearly as mouth-
watering as the real fruit.
Installation artist Alexa Meade does not paint
trompe l’oeils. She does just the opposite. Where-
as trompe l’oeil art consists of making flat paint-
ings look like three-dimensional objects and peo-
ple, Meade’s reverse trompe l’oeils make 3-D ob-
jects and people look like flat paintings.
Meade uses the human body as her canvas—
including Ariana Grande’s body for her music vid-
eo God Is a Woman. The artist spends two to five ALEXA MEADESusana Martinez-Conde and Stephen Macknik are professors of
ophthalmology at the State University of New York and the organizers of the
Best Illusion of the Year Contest. They have co-authored Sleights of Mind:
What the Neuroscience of Magic Reveals about Our Everyday Deceptions and
Champions of Illusion: The Science behind Mind-Boggling Images and
Mystifying Brain Puzzles.ILLUSIONS