Meet Adri Norris | Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Adri Norris and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Adri, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
I’m honestly not sure I have found the balance. I know what it’s like to overwork and get totally burned out. These days I’m in a pendulum swing in the opposite direction where I don’t work quite as much, but need to work more. Part of the challenge is having moved to a new state. It takes time to build up the connections I had before in order to find work opportunities.

The other challenge is the present state of affairs within our country. The kind of work I have been doing can be considered DEI oriented, making funders more hesitant to accept me for open calls for entry. Because of this, I am in the process of developing different work, but haven’t completely found my footing yet.

That said, I am much more rested that I was before, which feels good. Once I figure out my new direction, I will be on a mission to find a middle ground between where I was before and where I am now.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have spent the last almost decade focused on telling the stories of women in history through my art. I would read their biographies, listen to podcasts, run internet searches, all kinds of things to learn about who they were, what they did, the social contexts in which they lived and why all of that is important to us in the present day. I would then build irregularly shaped wood panels, collage all of that information onto the background as a form of visual storytelling, then paint each portrait on top in watercolor. It was a process that guaranteed that each painting would be completely unique and highly informative. I loved seeing how people of all ages would engage with my work.

These days, with all the changes in our country, I don’t feel as if that work is going to support me the way it has in the past. I still believe that it is important and I don’t want to stop making it, but in order to maintain my livelihood, I feel the need to pivot. I have been creating a new body of work, one that relies more on abstraction. The main concept is that I see history as non-linear. True, if you were to look at a timeline of events, it would seem as though one thing follows another, but if you were to do a deep dive into a single topic, you would see that for every advance, there’s often a retraction. Sometimes these things occur simultaneously.

Take the Civil Rights Movement, for example. Brown v Board of Education of Topeka ended school segregation, which looks like an advancement. But then, all across the South, charter schools popped up. Because they weren’t federally funded, they could control who was allowed to attend and teach an alternate version of American history, a fact that has ripple effects to the present day and set the stage for what we are experiencing now. At the same time, Black educators around the nation lost their jobs because with everyone going to school together, there was suddenly an “excess” of teachers and principals. See, forward, then backwards.

I envision this tangled timeline as rope or string, sometimes folding back on itself, sometimes tying itself in knots, never fully forming a straight line as we have been taught. That is what I am working on lately. I have had to learn how to pay attention and to move with the times. We will see how that works out for me.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Oh man! It’s been so long since I’ve gone out in Denver, I really couldn’t say. I don’t even know what’s still open. Everything changes so quickly! I only really go to cafes, so I’ll say Tonanatzin Casa de Cafe and Whittier Cafe. I’m also a big fan of Welton Street Cafe which just opened back up after a long hiatus. The soul food there is amazing!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Oh man! There are so many people who have supported me along the way! I am grateful to my community over at 910 Arts. Between my capoeira crew who went to all my early shows and commissioned artwork from me when I was figuring out how to be a professional artist and individuals who work in and around the building who provided me with walls to hang on, advice on what work to make and letters of recommendation for bigger projects, I have had a lot of support from that community over the years.

Website: https://afrotriangle.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/afrotraingle

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adri-norris-7900296/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZQIoJM8qcfga6n4lg9f7TA

Image Credits
Lisa Rundall Photography