Virtual Artist Talk: T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, October 22

Thursday, October 22, 6:30 p.m.

Presented by the Figge Art Museum

A celebrated artist and Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa headlines the Figge Art Museum's latest Virtual Artist Talk on October 22, with fabric assemblage, paintings, videos, music, works on paper, and performance art all under discussion when T.J. Dedeaux-Norris presents on the works in their new exhibition T.J. Dedeaux-Norris Presents the Estate of Tameka Jenean Norris.

As is stated in their online biography at MekaJean.com: “With myself and my communities as subject, I use painting, video, photography, music, performance, installation, project-based art, context art, confession, the internet and institutional critique to explore the internal drives and external influences that shape identity. My practice critiques the invisibility of blackness in cultural forms built upon the appropriation of popular and sacred black expressions and idioms. Although I was a 'creative child,' I came to Art through my tumultuous experience of trying to 'make it' in Los Angeles as a vulnerable teenage girl on my own. I explored the roles of rapper, video hoe, certified audio engineer, certified massage therapist, phone sex operator, stripper, prostitute, a sexually exploited, uneducated woman, porn star, occasional drug dealer, barista, customer service call center agent, professor, and art star – which now all inform my art and social practice.

“In addition to making my own music and music videos, full of tongue-in-cheek hip-hop posturing and works about my identity as an artist and a mixed-race black woman, I sample and mix materials liberally in my practice, as well. These range from paintings on found fabrics from all over the world and used bed sheets salvaged from Mississippi Gulf Coast neighborhoods destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, to photographs of myself exercising and exorcising stereotypes of race, gender and class to visceral performances centered upon the act of licking, f---ing, crying, and mimicking. In my work, as in life, I constantly re-invent myself. I engage issues in music, art, academia, sexual exploitation, and street-life, all of which I have been a subject, actor and agent. Laying bare the race to mythical perfection, my work throws into relief how exploitation is built into these systems, in particular for a folks of color, the other, women and queer communities. The fragmentation is somehow liberating and inviting as I approach and examine meta-self-improvement, success, and self care.”

The Virtual Artist Talk with T.J. Dedeaux-Norris is free, but advance registration is required, and participants will receive an e-mail with a Zoom link two hours before the program begins at 6:30 p.m. on October 22. T.J. Dedeaux-Norris Presents the Estate of Tameka Jenean Norris itself will be on display October 24 through January 31, and more information on both the exhibit and its companion events is available by calling (563)326-7804 or visiting FiggeArtMuseum.org.