Adrian Norvid

Adrian Norvid has been working with paper almost exclusively for 30 years. He creates small drawings and very large drawings that can fill a wall, as well as paper objects. He has built a larger-than-life-sized replica Hammond organ out of paper, a collection of 3D paper skulls, wearable paper clothing, a paper storefront with product-filled shelves, and a full-sized paper one-room house and its matching outhouse. Norvid’s work presents an alternate, oddly inflected, ahistorical world, but its themes are recognizable - popular culture (especially music), its movements, subgenres, and iconic objects. The work is usually humorous and ironic but can also be nostalgic, and though most often figurative, it can also be abstract and highly decorative. Norvid is also a musician and has performed theatre-like musical pieces in sets of his own making. Norvid is currently working on an extended project about the macabre stemming from research into the popular “Goth” subculture.

Adrian Norvid was born in London, England, and currently resides and works in Montreal. He earned his MFA from York University (Toronto) and holds a BFA in Music, also from York. Norvid's artworks have been showcased in commercial galleries and museums across Canada, with solo exhibitions at notable venues such as the Musée d’art de Joliette (Joliette), Parisian Laundry (Montreal), FOFA Gallery (Montreal), Joyce Yahouda Gallery (Montreal), AXENÉO7 (Gatineau), AKA (Saskatoon), and Galerie Julia Garnatz (Cologne). Additionally, Norvid's traveling solo exhibition was featured at The Rooms (Newfoundland), the McIntosh Gallery (London, Ont.), the Robert McLaughlin Gallery (Oshawa), and the Art Gallery of Windsor (Windsor, Ont.). His work was included in the remarkable Québec Triennial of 2011 at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the 2017 exhibition Installations On A Large Scale at the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec. Norvid has given performances at various venues, including L’Écart (Rouyn-Noranda), The Rooms (Newfoundland), ODD Gallery (Dawson City, Yukon), L’Oeil De Poisson (Quebec City), and Centre Clarke (Montreal). He has also participated in residencies at the Gushul Studio from the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, the International Symposium of Contemporary Art of Baie-Saint-Paul, the Vermont Studio Center, and Griffin Art Projects in North Vancouver. Norvid's work is included in prominent museal collections, such as those of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal and the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec.