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Kate Norris

Paper / Book / Illustration, Visual / Media

Mixed media collage artist who tears wallpaper to tell stories, assembling and juxtaposing the small paper fragments to form a greater whole. Often the mosaic-like artworks depict larger than life human heads, hands, and figures.

About the Artist

Kate Norris’ mixed media collages are made from tearing wallpaper and reconstructing the pieces in a new way, giving new meaning with a modern sensibility. From a distance, a viewer looking at the wallpaper collages will see a primary image. But, as the viewer looks closer the process reveals layers of torn and combined papers, where small narratives and abstract juxtapositions of flowers, animals, foliage, and colors are formed. Her collages open conversations about processes, techniques, and symbolic associations. Norris graduated with a BA from Stanford University and earned her MFA at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She has exhibited her work in San Francisco, New York City, Tampa, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Baltimore.

Kate Norris website Kate Norris Art

Artist's Statement

I rip wallpaper, reconfiguring the small paper fragments to form a greater whole. Often the mosaic-like artworks depict larger-than-life human heads, hands, and figures. At once beautiful and thoughtful, the images are also stark. Using wallpaper imagery as a metaphor for domesticity and as reminders of a past life, I transform the fragments into anatomical and anthropological figures, which creates uneasiness. There is a contradictory aspect to the artworks: the appeal of the designs and colors within the wallpapers contrasted with the message within a piece. The collages alter the idealized and pastoral scenes contained within the wallpaper’s imagery and transforms them into a universal common denominator: our innate physiology and shared humanity. My ongoing body of work, the Perception series, continues the exploration of these universal themes, with some pieces referring to Baltimore, Maryland.  The stories in these pieces while specific to Baltimore reflect our society. 

Featured Work

Photos

"Bird Cage" depicts the mosaic like image of a human skeleton torso on a vertically split background of ripped gold wallpaper on the left and ripped leopard print on the right. Flying around the rib cage are two blue birds looking for a place to nest. From a distance one sees the image of the skeleton but as the viewer gets closer small juxtapositions of torn wallpaper become visible. The piece references life, death, society and anatomy.
"Vitarka" is a wallpaper collage of a Buddha Mudra (hand gestures) symbolizing teaching and discussions for growth and awakening. This collage was made from pages of a vintage Thibaut wallpaper sample book. The oval adds focus to the hand and references historic portrait compositions.
"Grave Digger" is a wallpaper collage depicting a three quarter view of a human skull. The collage is made from vintage wallpaper with small images of flora and fauna and symbolizes life.
Charm City (a reference to Baltimore’s nickname), a 24 x 36-inch finger gun is depicted using a navy floral wallpaper with a gold chain running throughout. The viewer at first glance sees a hand constructed with lush floral imagery but, upon further reflection, she realizes the beauty inherent in the lovely chain and verdant foliage are transformed using the finger gun imagery into a more authentic, visceral representation of the city’s struggle with violence. Completing the scene are the torn navy pieces with their white edges simulating cracks in the artwork’s background and metaphorically the cracks within our society.
Henrietta is inspired from a vintage medical illustration of a female torso, where the torso is shown dissected and splayed for use in the study of cervical cancer. Henrietta Lacks was a black Baltimore resident in 1951 whose cervical cancer cells were taken without permission from doctors at Johns Hopkins and these cells, called HeLa, were cultured, sold, and used around the globe to help researchers in cancer studies. Her family only as of late is getting recognition and acknowledgement that Henrietta was a person and never compensated for her unwitting contribution to cancer research. This piece highlights the icon that Henrietta has now become; an icon of our past and current foundations that we cannot seemingly escape yet.
Everyman, is just that, every man. We see a view beneath the skin, from the chest up through the neck and including the head. Under the surface, everyone's the same, whether one is black, white, yellow, or brown, we are all equal and made from the same parts. Looking closer within the body small narratives of a life lived are played out in images from toile wallpaper pieced together.