Natasha Norman

Natasha Norman has always lived by the ocean, developing a love for its moods, energy and ecology from her father. Her work is deeply inspired by the sea and celebrates an empathic imagination. In the manifestation of the shifting layers and planes of her marks and tones is an embodied experience (a sensory memory) of place, weather and emotion. Such an imagination, driven by primal experiences of space, is believed by Norman to be a vital player in recovering humanity’s concern with ecology and environmental well-being.

Norman completed her Honours (2005) and Masters (2011) degree in Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. She currently works as a part-time lecturer, arts writer and practicing artist. Throughout her art training and career she has consistently been inspired by the medium and technical challenges of print. She trained in traditional Western print methods at the University of Cape Town and subsequently attended residencies in Japan to study the Japanese relief print method called Mokuhanga.

Norman’s mastery of printmaking enables her to work across various print techniques in order to produce work that aims to connect a viewer to an experience. This requires a movement of imagination, a transcendence of the self in order to access a poetic visual language to something greater: whether profoundly beautiful, terrifying or comforting.

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS | AWARDS | RESIDENCIES

2021 - New Girls on the Block, an exhibition by The Printing Girls, Association for the Arts, Pretoria. 2020 - Light from Dark: Conversations with the work of Alma Vorster, Spin Street Gallery, Cape Town.  2019 - ‘Regarding Winter’, Salon91; ‘Nano 1.3.’ Barnard Gallery, Cape Town; ‘The Distance from Afar’, Group exhibition at Glen Carlou wine estate in association with Salon91 Gallery; ‘Conversations’, UCT Michaelis Galleries; Cape Town Art Fair, Salon91 Booth. 2018 – ‘SEE ART: Contemporary Abstract’ at Gallery 2, Johannesburg; Cape Town Art Fair, SA Print Gallery booth; ‘February Edition’ at CfSHE Gallery, Tokyo. 2017 - Searching for Mokuhanga Light: Globalizing Japanese Woodblock Printmaking, Hawaii and Cyprus, Greece; Presenting Artists at the Centre for the Science of Human Endeavour, Tokyo, Japan; ‘Field’ at Salon 91. 2016 - ‘Nano’, Barnard Gallery, Cape Town. 2015 – ‘However’, Art Hub Gallery, London; Turbine Art Fair, Johannesburg, Salon 91 booth. 2014 – Golden Haze at Salon91. 2013 –Slate Projects at UK Multiplied Print Fair, Christies, London; ‘Between the Lines’ at UCT Michaelis Galleries. 2011 – Further Fictions (solo) Commune 1 Gallery, Cape Town. 2008 – ABSA Atelier Finalist Exhibition, Pretoria; 2007 – The Look of Love (solo) Bell-Roberts Gallery, Cape Town; ‘Contusion’ at Irma Stern Museum, University of Cape Town; Sasol New Signatures Finalists’ exhibition in Pretoria.