Meet Alice Neel
Exhibition Primer for The Met Museum
New York City was Alice Neel’s greatest muse: the radical painter lived and worked in the city for nearly 60 years. This Primer— an interactive digital experience— explores the friends, family, and fellow activists featured in the exhibition Alice Neel: People Come First.
In this interactive digital feature, the artist Alice Neel acts as our guide to New York City. The introductory video shows Alice in her apartment, digging through her archives, and leading us down her hallway and out of the frame. With this UI framing device, Neel invites us to literally and figuratively follow her to explore her art and the Primer itself.
The Primer’s use of archival interview audio and video footage contribute to an intimate, documentary-like look and feel. The recurring visual motif of windows invites us to see the city through Alice Neel’s eyes. Throughout, the project demonstrates how copy and design should be in conversation with one another and that multimedia choices should be intentional and not purely aesthetic.
Audiograms
A video gallery allowed visitors to hear Alice Neel discussing the sitters in her paintings in her own words. Formatted vertically, these “audiograms” also served as promotional assets on The Met’s Instagram account.
Primer Credits
Creative Direction + Web Production: Isabella Garces
Copy: Eileen Willis, William Fenstermaker, Isabella Garces
Video Editing: Lela Jenkins
Design: Isabella Garces, Evander Batson