TJ Norris (born October 10, 1965) is an American interdisciplinary artist known for his urban, conceptual photography and installation projects. Hailing from New England, Norris is also a celebrated curator and freelance writer based in Texas.

Early life and education

Norris was born at the Boston Lying-In Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts to longshoreman Kenneth C. Whiting and chef Phyllis M. Whiting (née Norris). The

paternal A father is the male parent of a child. Besides the paternal bonds of a father to his children, the father may have a parental, legal, and social relationship with the child that carries with it certain rights and obligations. An adoptive fathe ...

side of Norris' family are

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

and his

maternal ] A mother is the female parent of a child. A woman may be considered a mother by virtue of having given birth, by raising a child who may or may not be her biological offspring, or by supplying her ovum for fertilisation in the case of gestat ...

side is Canadians, Canadian, more specifically Newfoundland, also originating from Ireland. Making visual art from found objects was evident as early as age six, and developed into elementary school where he would win his first student awards. At an early age Norris worked various odd jobs from an insurance claims clerk, security services and purchasing agent. Norris was educated in

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

schools from pre-school through high school. In recent years he has referred to himself as a

polytheist Polytheism is the belief in multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own religious sects and rituals. Polytheism is a type of theism. Within theism, it contrasts with monotheism, the ...

and a feminist. He studied at

Massachusetts College of Art Massachusetts College of Art and Design, branded as MassArt, is a public college of visual and applied art in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1873, it is one of the nation’s oldest art schools, the only publicly funded independent art school ...

with influential American photographers

Abelardo Morell Abelardo Morell (born 1948, Havana, Cuba) is a contemporary artist widely known for turning rooms into camera obscuras and then capturing the marriage of interior and exterior in large format photographs. He is also known for his 'tent-camera,' a ...

and Laura McPhee and at Nova Scotia College of Art & Design. Between the late 1990s and 2000s he put his thoughts into writing as a journalist for such publications as

ARTnews ''ARTnews'' is an American visual-arts magazine, based in New York City. It covers art from ancient to contemporary times. ARTnews is the oldest and most widely distributed art magazine in the world. It has a readership of 180,000 in 124 countr ...

, Signal to Noise, Resident Advisor, OregonLive.com, Paris Transatlantic, Art Ltd. and

Willamette Week ''Willamette Week'' (''WW'') is an alternative weekly newspaper and a website published in Portland, Oregon, United States, since 1974. It features reports on local news, politics, sports, business, and culture. History Early history ''Willame ...

among others.

Work

Since 1990 Norris' studio practice is multidisciplinary, a hybrid of

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syst ...

and installation. His first one-man show was held at the Boston Center for the Arts at age 25 in 1990. His work has been primarily based on the urban environment. His work has been referred to as dystopian, lo-tech and sterile, engaging postmodern issues of loss, surveillance culture, parallel universe, racism, ego, phobia, and death. Some of Norris' influences have been rumored to be disparate figures in the world of the arts and sciences including

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass med ...

, Roald Dahl,

Emmanuel Levinas Emmanuel Levinas (; ; 12 January 1906 – 25 December 1995) was a French philosopher of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry who is known for his work within Jewish philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology, focusing on the relationship of ethics t ...

and

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

. Norris has shown in the Americas as well as internationally in Italy, the UK, China, Belgium, and is held in the collections of the Fuller Museum of Art, Museo de la Ciudad, Vanhaerents Art Collection, Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts as well as numerous private collections. His work has been featured in Photographer's Forum, Art Ltd,

Leonardo (journal) ''Leonardo'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the MIT Press covering the application of contemporary science and technology to the arts and music. History ''Leonardo'' journal was established in 1968 by artist and scientist F ...

(

MIT Press The MIT Press is a university press affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States). It was established in 1962. History The MIT Press traces its origins back to 1926 when MIT publish ...

), Shades of Grey Magazine (France), The Oregonian, The Boston Globe and Silvershotz (Australia), among others. In the past decade his work has been featured at the

Tacoma Art Museum The Tacoma Art Museum (TAM) is an art museum in Tacoma, Washington, United States. It focuses primarily on the art and artists from the Pacific Northwest and broader western region of the U.S. Founded in 1935, the museum has strong roots in the c ...

, South Bend Art Museum, and at the Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle). He has developed several collaborations with sound artists and composers such as Scanner (

Robin Rimbaud Robin Rimbaud is an electronic musician who works under the name Scanner due to his use of cell phone and police scanners in live performance. He is also a member of the band Githead with Wire's Colin Newman and Malka Spigel and Max Franken fro ...

Asmus Tietchens Asmus Tietchens (born 3 February 1947, in Hamburg), who also records under the monikers Hematic Sunsets and Club of Rome, is a German composer of avant-garde music. Tietchens became interested in experimental music and musique concrète as a chi ...

Leif Elggren Leif Elggren (born 1950, Linköping, Sweden), is a Swedish artist who lives and works in Stockholm. Active since the late 1970s, Leif Elggren has become one of the most constantly surprising conceptual artists to work in the combined worlds of ...

and Christian Renou (

Brume Brume is a surname. It is also an English and French word for mist. Notable people with the surname include: * Ese Brume Ese Brume Member of the Order of the Niger, MON (born 20 January 1996) is a Nigerians, Nigerian Sport of athletics, athl ...

) among others. These collaborations led to critical observations about the intersection between sound and visual art. His work has been cited to be influenced by Experimental music and

Post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

Publishing

In 2010 Norris developed the now defunct Toneshift.net as an online archive of his critical writing on experimental/electronic music. The original site included critical reviews and interviews of genre-defying sound-based work, for which Norris was Publisher. The online magazine was resurrected in 2018 with a growing team of contributors which eventually evolved into a weekly podcast otherwise known as Toneshift Radio on Mixcloud. Completing its decade of programming in December 2020 this overlapped with Norris' new venture, Notetaking.blog, a podcast dedicated to the art of the olfactory sense. In 2014 Norris founded and published GoFigureNews.com as a resource for adult collectors of art toys produced by indie toymakers. The popular online magazine boasted a sizable international social media following in its third year of publication. Now defunct, the site presented interviews, reviews and features on artists including Luke Chueh, Jason Freeny,

Frank Kozik Frank Kozik (born January 9, 1962 in Madrid) is an American graphic artist best known for his posters for alternative rock bands. History Kozik has worked with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Me ...

, and Sket One. Brands such as

Kidrobot Kidrobot is a producer and retailer of designer toys, vinyl art toys and collectibles founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Paul Budnitz. The company was one of the earliest creators of designer art toys in America. The company was acquired in November ...

Medicom Chloramphenicol is an antibiotic useful for the treatment of a number of bacterial infections. This includes use as an eye ointment to treat conjunctivitis. By mouth or by injection into a vein, it is used to treat meningitis, plague, cholera, a ...

and several others were regularly featured in a daily format. The primary focus of the magazine was to illustrate the scope of the independent designer toy scene and those creating limited edition 3D works in vinyl, resin and other materials. The site was nominated for three Designer Toy Awards in 2017 and 2018 in two categories completing its three year run in May 2017.

Soundvision

In 2001 Norris founded his signature gallery, Soundvision, a project space which focused on sound-related work, installation and performance. Soundvision was recognized as one of the "10 Best New Places in Portland" by ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 18 ...

''. The gallery featured audio/visual and multimedia work with a focus on installation, 2/3D by artists including

Terre Thaemlitz Terre Thaemlitz is a musician, public speaker, and owner of the record label Comatonse Recordings. Thaemlitz's work critically combines themes of identity politics – including gender, sexuality, class, linguistics, ethnicity and race – with a ...

, Cary Leibowitz, and Janek Schaefer. The space also played host to a series of performances including Belgian composer

Vidna Obmana Vidna Obmana (stylized vidnaObmana on many album covers) is a pseudonym used by Belgian composer and ambient musician Dirk Serries. The name ''Vidna Obmana'', a phrase in Serbian, literally translates to "optical illusion" and was chosen by Serr ...

, Illusion of Safety, and Ethan Rose. The gallery closed in November 2003.

Published works

*''Shooting Blanks'' (Monograph), 2018 (No Periods Publications, Fort Worth, Texas) *''Fur: The Love of Hair'' (Bruno Gmünder Verlag GmbH), 2012 (Berlin, Germany) *''Of Other Spaces'' (Bureau for Open Culture), 2009 (Columbus, Ohio) *''Beyond Trend'' (F+W Publications), 2008 (Cincinnati, Ohio) *''One Shot/Visual Codec'', 2007 (Seattle, Washington) *''Portland Modern/Radius Studio'', 2006 (Portland, Oregon) Issue #3 *''Bear Book II'', 2001 (Hawthorne Press, Editor - Les Wright) *''Sgraffito Press'', 1997 (Marina Del Rey, California) *''Through the Cracks'', 1994 (Ragged Edge Press, New York, New York) *''New American Paintings'', 1993 (Open Studios Press, Boston, Massachusetts)

Shooting Blanks

Norris released his first monograph of photographic imagery from the series, "Shooting Blanks" on May 1, 2018. This collection of constructed photographic images was shot on location in sixteen of the United States and presented at the Tacoma Art Museum, Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, OR and other locations. The first pressing was released in an edition of one hundred copies. The series depicts the detritus of industrial signage in the urban landscape and was developed after the artist traveled to over a dozen U.S. states to capture images for an earlier photographic series, "No Sign" (2008-2013).

Discography

* 2020 - ''deStill'' (Flag Day Recordings), Nathan Moody, composer (based on the work of Norris) * 2006 - ''triMIX'' (

Innova Recordings Innova Recordings is the independent record label of the non-profit American Composers Forum based in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1982 to document the winners of the McKnight Fellowship offered by its parent organization, the Minnesot ...

) * 2003 - ''The Tribryd Installation Soundtracks'' (

Beta-lactam Ring Records Beta-lactam Ring Records is an American independent record label founded by Chris McBeth in 2000.The label relocated from its founding city of Austin, Texas to Portland, Oregon in 2001. The aesthetic focus of the label is psychedelic and experim ...

) In 2003 Beta-lactam Ring Records released Norris' compilation ''The Tribryd Installation Soundtracks''. This collection of soundtracks, were based on his photographic works of the urban and industrial Pacific Northwest and the trio of resulting installations. In 2006,

/American Composers Forum released mixed, reconstructed versions of compositions by eleven sound artists including

Nobukazu Takemura Nobukazu Takemura (竹村延和 ''Takemura Nobukazu'') is a Japanese musician and artist. Born in Hirakata, Osaka in August 1968, he became interested in music at a young age by listening to the radio, and began to make music at home with a ta ...

, Andrew Lagowski, (

Lustmord Brian Williams is a Welsh industrial musician, sound designer and film score composer. He is often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord. His experimental work has been described as "not tra ...

) and Troum. Norris' photographic work has been depicted as cover art on several recordings across many genres and international labels since 1999.

Awards

*Regional Arts & Culture Council, 2013 / Artistic Focus Grant *Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, 2012 / Change Grant *Oregon Arts Commission, 2012 / Career Opportunity Grant *Regional Arts & Culture Council, 2010 / Professional Development Grant *New American Art Union, 2008 / Couture Stipend *New England Open Studio: The Arts Online, 1999 / NEA (through the

Benton Foundation The Benton Foundation is a nonprofit organization set up by former U.S. Senator William Benton and his wife, Helen Hemingway Benton. Their son, Charles Benton, served as chairman and CEO until his death in 2015. The Benton Foundation was the own ...

) *Massachusetts Arts Lottery Grant, 1991 / Somerville Arts Council

External links

Official Site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris, Tj 1965 births Living people Artists from Boston Interdisciplinary artists Massachusetts College of Art and Design alumni NSCAD University alumni