SCENE: Sirron Norris bears all
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Interview by Caitlin Donohue. From SCENE: The Guardian Guide to Nightlife and Glamour -- on stands in the Guardian now!
"When you walk into a room in San Francisco, half the people in there are going to know who I am — or at least the bear," says "cartoon literalism" artist (and palindrome) Sirron Norris. Norris may be right about his citywide ubiquity. The friendly blue bears and pink rabbits that frolic through his Technicolor streetscapes are probably brightening up a wall near you, from Balmy Alley to the neighborhood cheesesteak restaurant. But the lightheartedness of Norris' popular work belies an artist with an intense drive to be commercially viable in the increasingly barebones world of art. Upcoming projects include Bob's Burgers, an animated series on Fox, and a studio at 1406 Valencia where he'll hawk his own work and teach cartooning classes — even a proposed reality show. Ever opinionated, Norris pulls no punches when it comes to taggers, the Mission anti-gentrification movement, and the value of commercialism.
SFBG How did you get started in the SF art scene?
SIRRON NORRIS I fell into fine art. I'd never planned on it at all. I was making video games at a software development company in San Rafael and painting on the side out of frustration. I was doing these canvases on my own and [one day] I took them down to Luggage Space, which was the hot gallery at the time. A few months later, I had a show.
SFBG I think, given the aesthetic of your work, a lot of people would be surprised to find out that you don't come from a graffiti background.
SN I have a huge disdain for graffiti. My murals have been ripped apart by it. I exercise a lot and the main reason I started is honestly because I wanted to stay up super-late at night and run around with a baseball bat and find [taggers]. People don't understand when they ruin my murals how hurtful that is. You are stealing that artist's life away from them. And for what — you want people to notice you? I just think that it's sad and self-indulgent. I'm an artist too, but when [someone tags a wall] it's gonna be their name, or an elaborate form of their name, or their crew. It's not like the murals, where we're trying to tell some rich indigenous history or something about apartheid.
SFBG But isn't it true that mural and graffiti artists share the same fight against a classical definition of what art is? They're both making art for the streets, which is traditionally a lower class audience.
SN I get it — everyone's trying to challenge what art is. But art is art, and people have to understand that being an artist is the easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is call yourself one. It's subjective. In the end, you're making someone happy, or they're going to be upset by it. That's the whole point of art.
SFBG Tell me about "cartoon literalism," the term you created for your genre.
SN I come from a background where you create something and you label it. Everything has to have a package. Cartoon literalism was my way of doing just that. The term means two things. Number one, it's creating a deeper form of art out of cartoons. Number two, it's using the cartoon as a vehicle to express ideas and concepts that might be a little bit inappropriate coming out of the mouth.
SFBG Do you ever make art for yourself?
SN I don't have time. Who's going to pay for that? I'm honored not to have time to paint my own stuff. Now that I've gained some recognition, my work has turned into this fluffy poppy version of my older work. Everyday I get a little more comfortable with offering things up to people that have no meaning whatsoever in my life or have no importance at all. It's just aesthetics. It's just some cool stuff to look at that people like.
SFBG Can you tell me about Victorion, your mural in Balmy Alley that you revised?
SN The first piece I had up in Balmy Alley wasn't about anti-gentrification at all. It was totally self-indulgent. [Balmy mural curators] Precita Eyes didn't get it — it didn't really meld with their aesthetic, and it was the only mural that wasn't sanctioned by them. I took the opportunity to make something more apropos for the people that are going to Balmy for knowledge. A lot of people don't realize that [Victorion] is not entirely anti-gentrification. I've always had a little bit of an issue with that word in the Mission because I think it's an oxymoron. It wouldn't be the Mission if it wasn't gentrified to begin with? So many generations have passed, it's like, who are we actually saying that this place belongs to? That's my question.
