TJ Norris

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TJ Norris
Born
Thomas J. Whiting

(1965-10-10) October 10, 1965 (age 59)
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Education Massachusetts College of Art, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University
Occupation(s) Interdisciplinary artist, curator
Known for Installation art, photography
Movement Installation art, conceptual art
Spouse
Jon Sofley
​
(m. 2017)​
Website tjnorrisart.com

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 curator and freelance writer based in Texas.

Contents

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 side of Norris's family are Irish and his maternal side is 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 schools from pre-school through high school. He studied at the Massachusetts College of Art with photographers Abelardo Morell and Laura McPhee and at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.

Between the late 1990s and 2000s, he was a journalist for publications including ARTnews , Signal to Noise, Resident Advisor , OregonLive.com, Paris Transatlantic , Art Ltd. and Willamette Week .

Work

Since 1990, Norris's studio practice is multidisciplinary, a hybrid of photography, film 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's influences have been rumored to be disparate figures in the world of the arts and sciences, including J. G. Ballard, Roald Dahl, Emmanuel Levinas and Marcel Duchamp.

Norris has shown in the Americas as well as internationally in Italy, the U.K., China, Belgium, and is held in the collections of the Fuller Museum of Art, the 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 (MIT Press), 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 South Bend Museum of Art, and at the Center on Contemporary Art (Seattle). He has developed several collaborations with sound artists and composers, including Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), Asmus Tietchens, Leif Elggren and Christian Renou (Brume). 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.

Publishing

Toneshift.net

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 which was retired in 2023, and resurrected at CAMP Radio, based in France, in early 2025.

GoFigureNews.com

In 2014, Norris founded and published GoFigureNews.com as a resource for adult collectors of art toys produced by indie toymakers. The 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, and Sket One. Brands such as Kidrobot, Medicom 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. Between 2020 and 2021, Norris acted as editor of the Notetaking blog, a podcast dedicated to the art of the olfactory.

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 gallery featured audio/visual and multimedia work with a focus on installation, 2/3D by artists including Terre Thaemlitz, Robin Rimbaud, Cary Leibowitz, and Janek Schaefer. The space also played host to a series of performances including Belgian composer Vidna Obmana, Illusion of Safety, and Ethan Rose. The gallery closed in November 2003.

Published works

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, Oregon, 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

In 2003, Beta-lactam Ring Records released Norris's compilation The Tribryd Installation Soundtracks. This collection of soundtracks, are based on his photographic works of the urban and industrial Pacific Northwest and the trio of resulting installations. In 2006, Innova Recordings/American Composers Forum released mixed, reconstructed versions of compositions by eleven sound artists including Nobukazu Takemura, Andrew Lagowski, (Lustmord) and Troum. Norris's photographic work has been depicted as cover art on several recordings across many genres and international labels since 1999.

Awards

Personal life

Norris is gay and married. During the 1980s, he was involved with the Queer Nation advocacy group.

In recent years he has referred to himself as a polytheist.

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