Kevin William Norris


Master of Fine Arts in Studio, Performance

I have had a long history with the color blue. Or, rather, the history of the color blue is expansive and I have had an experience with it. My first realization of my relation to blue started as a collection of trinkets and items that were all different shades of blue. Eventually it dawned on me that, perhaps, I chose these items because of their color—or they have chosen me because of some type of haunting. Either way, in this fascination—or obsession—with blue I found myself investigating not just the representation of blue, but rather the materiality of it. This is to say that traces of the color in paintings and images provide one with a particular way of knowing blue— but further, there are plenitudes and multitudes of affective experiences with blue that may or may not privilege sight and/or empirical knowledge. I find myself, at the same time that I lose myself, in relation to the color blue. Rapture. BOYBLUE is a performance lecture and video essay paired with a zine that interacts with this perceptual space. The question of disappearance is central to this inquiry. Where do “you” go if “you” disappears? This question emerges, in part, as a reaction to the world and the context of its creation. The video is an offering and the zine is something to take, to hold, to wield.