Andrew Norris

Todays speech was a look into the life and career of Andrew Norris. He largely works with oil painting, but has gotten burned out from figure painting and has recently been doing some flower paintings and some printings. One major aspect of his work is themes of queer identity - he himself is queer and the subjects of many of his works are queer celebrities or celebrities seen through a queer lens. It was interesting to hear that he hadn't really figured things out and that his artwork didn't necessarily help him with his identity. He also struggles with body image, and his art often features very idealized bodies and an exaggerated of gender. He acknowledges that some of his art is a bit problematic. He portrays a filtered, mainstream, "sellable" version of queer identity, partially by virtue of mostly painting celebrities. These subjects may be problematic, as well. I dunno, I thought it was neat.