| ARTIST BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH: | Jude Norris (aka Tatakwan) is a multi-disciplinary artist of Cree, Anishnawbe, Scottish, Gypsy and Russian descent. She combines modern technology with traditional First Nations culture to create provocative works with various themes central to First Nations’ culture. Norris uses diverse media such as antler, binary code, medicinal plants, deconstructed telecommunications cable, roots, rubber and video projection. Recurrent subjects in her work are the relationship between nature and technology and the contradictions of living as an indigenous person in a contemporary colonial environment.
She refers to her art education as both formal Eurocentric and traditional First Nations. From 1991 through 1998, she studied painting and sculpture in London (UK) and new media, including performance art at Kensington & Chelsea Fine Arts Post-Foundation Programs in London (UK) and at the Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto ON). She has been featured in numerous group and solo shows in Edmonton, (AB) Toronto (ON), London (UK) and Vancouver (BC).
She is featured in collections locally and internationally including the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (Edmonton, AB) and the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian (New York, NY). Jude Norris is also known as Winter Brown with her recent Home and Native Land series. Regarded as one of Canada's leading contemporary aboriginal artists, her work has been exhibited extensively across Canada and internationally. |