Tameka Norris, also known as. T.J. Dedeaux-Norris and Meka Jean is an American

visual The visual system comprises the sensory organ (the eye) and parts of the central nervous system (the retina containing photoreceptor cells, the optic nerve, the optic tract and the visual cortex) which gives organisms the sense of sight ...

and

performing artist The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perfor ...

. Norris uses painting, sculpture, and performance art to create work about racial identity and the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of blackness through cultural appropriation in modern society. Her work critiques the presence of the black body in the history of painting and fine art.

Early life and education

Norris studied at

Santa Monica College Santa Monica College (SMC) is a public, community college in Santa Monica, California. Founded as a junior college in 1929, SMC enrolls over 30,000 students in more than 90 fields of study. Although initially serving primarily pre-college high sc ...

Santa Monica, California Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to ...

, and moved to the

UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture The UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture (UCLA Arts) is a professional school at the University of California, Los Angeles. Through its four degree-granting departments, it provides a range of course offerings and programs. Additionally, th ...

in 2007. Norris went on to receive her Master of Fine Arts degree from

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

in 2012.

Work and career

Norris is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 co ...

. She has studied at the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 6 ...

(2009) and has participated in many artist residencies including the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

(2016) and The Fountainhead Residency. She was a Fellow at the Grant Wood Art Colony from 2016 – 2017. Norris was listed as one of "24 Artists to Watch in 2013" by ''

Modern Painters ''Modern Painters'' (1843–1860) is a five-volume work by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition o ...

'' magazine .n.(December 28, 2012)
24 Artists to Watch in 2013: Part 2 of 2
''Modern Painters''. Archived January 2, 2013.

Performance art

In 2013 Norris was a part of a group exhibition and performance titled "Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art" This exhibition, held at The Studio Museum in Harlem, was a view of performance art by Black Visual Artists over the past five decades, and featured over a dozen live performances over a six-month period. For this exhibition, Norris performed her 2012 work
Untitled (2012)
'' In this work, Norris paints a wall using her body as both the paint and the paintbrush. Norris runs a knife through a lemon, then cuts her tongue and while pressing her body against the wall uses the trail of blood and saliva to create a minimalist landscape on the gallery walls. The resulting effect is to disrupt the notions of a pristine white-cube gallery space, bringing up ideas of the body, violence, and pain. This exhibition was documented in

Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinkin ...

and the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

Visual art

Norris's solo exhibitions include "Family Values" at the C ontemporary Art Center in New Orleans in 2013, "Tameka Norris: Too Good For You (Introducing Meka Jean)" at the Lombard Fried Gallery in 2014, "Almost Acquaintances" at the Ronchini Gallery in 2014, and "Not Acquiescing" at the 1708 Gallery in 2015. In 2012 her work was included in the "MFA Annual" edition of '' New American Painting'' magazine, an anthology of MFA graduate work from more than a hundred colleges in the United States. Her exhibition ''Between Bloodlines and Floodlines'' was shown at the

Savannah College of Art and Design Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is a private nonprofit art school with locations in Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; and Lacoste, France. Founded in 1978 to provide degrees in programs not yet offered in the southeast of the Uni ...

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital city, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County, the mos ...

, in 2015.

Film

Her feature length-film ''Meka Jean: How She Got Good,'' is an internal investigation of identity and culture, starring the artist as herself in a search for identity, home, and what it means to be from New Orleans. This film was debuted during the international exhibition Prospect.3 New Orleans, and was presented as a multi-chambered installation at May Gallery, a nonprofit art space in New Orleans. In 2011, Norris created a work of video art re-performing Bruce Nauman's 1967-68 work ''Walking in an Exaggerated Manor Around the Perimeter of a Square.'' This piece was shown in her 2013 "Family Values" exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans.

Music

In 2016 Norris released a conceptual rap album titled "Ivy League Ratchet" in conjunction with a four-person exhibition at the SVA Chelsea Gallery titled "The Beat Goes On". This album spoke about issues such as being a woman of color and attending an Ivy League school.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Norris, Tameka African-American women artists Guamanian women Living people UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Yale School of Art alumni American women artists American performance artists American contemporary artists African-American women musicians 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women