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Andrew Norris and Queer Identity

Orville Peck as The Blue Boy, Andrew Norris, 2021

     Andrew Norris' talk was really great, now I really want to go see his show. I love how his art is dealing directly with celebrity culture as well as art history. It is really subversive how he places these queer people into paintings that originally re-inscribed traditional heteronormative viewing/identity. I connected a lot to these paintings because of the celebrities he was using, especially Orville Peck, who is about the only country musician I ever listen too. The style of portraiture Norris is doing is also interesting because of how indebted it is to the old masters. I love the juxtaposition of this very historical, serious style of painting with the uncharacteristic figures he puts in them. These paintings feel like something that traditional academics would hate (I know he mentioned his teachers in school not liking him painting celebrities or comic book characters), which I really like. 

    It was also really interesting to hear him talk about how, as much as he likes these paintings, they have the problem of focusing only on a form of queerness that has been deemed acceptable by the mainstream. His honesty about this was really refreshing, and made the work enjoyable. I feel like oftentimes artists don't admit that parts of their work may have issues, but here Norris is acknowledging it while still showing how important they are to him (and to a lot of us in the audience it seemed like). I really connected to him talking about how a lot of us queer people tend to grab onto celebrities and really incorporate them into our identities and cherish them, and it is really liberating to see someone showing this in these paintings that are rooted in history. 

Comments

  1. Xiyue ZhangFebruary 25, 2022 at 10:47 PM

    Yes! I also like the way he used the color to emphasize the image. I understood a lot about his arts through your blog!

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  2. KelseyFebruary 26, 2022 at 8:32 PM

    I totally agree on the point about acknowledging issues. It's easy to find a lot of flaws in the artistry of your own work, but it seemed like he had some valid criticism. I never really thought about queer people grabbing onto celebrities but I guess we kinda do. (i think i kinda do that with fictional characters tho lol)

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