Creep possibly criminal, As a teenager, Mead was inspired by European painting and underground comics, especially those of Robert Crumb. He studied art at the University of Northern Iowa before moving with his parents to England in 1975.[citation needed] He studied printmaking at the Camden arts Centre in London. After returning to Iowa in 1977, he studied drawing at the University of Iowa, and in 1983 moved to Minneapolis Minnesota In 1987 he graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he became acquainted with artist and future collaborator Frank Gaard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stu_Mead Mead moved to Berlin in 2000.[citation needed] In 2003, he participated in the exhibition "Please Don't Make Me Cry," curated by Georgina Starr at Emily Tsingou Gallery in London. There, Mead exhibited paintings depicting girls in graveyards.[citation needed] In April, 2004 a group exhibition called "When Love Turns to Poison" was held at the Kunstraum Bethanien in Berlin, showing, among other works by Mead, the painting "First Communion," which was destroyed during the exhibition by a religion-obsessed vandal.[4] The exhibition of eight artists became a national scandal, with conservative newspapers declaring it pornographic and non-art.