T.J. Dedeaux-Norris

Tameka Norris, also known as T.J. Dedeaux-Norris and Meka Jean, is an American visual and performing artist. Norris uses painting, sculpture, and performance art to create work about racial identity and the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of blackness through cultural appropriation in modern society. Her work critiques the presence of the Black body in the history of painting and fine art.

Early life and education Born in Guam, Norris grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi. Following high school, in 1995, she moved to Los Angeles, where her biological father resided, initially to pursue a rap career.

She spent time working as a phone sex operator and music video extra before enrolling at Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California. While at UCLA, she worked under the guidance of several influential faculty, including: Andrea Fraser, Mary Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Rodney McMillian, Cathy Opie, and Lari Pittman. She has studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2009) and has participated in many artist residencies, including the MacDowell Colony (2016) and The Fountainhead Residency. Norris was a Fellow at the Grant Wood Art Colony from 2016–2017, and in 2017, she received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment of the Arts.

Norris was listed as one of "24 Artists to Watch in 2013" by Modern Painters magazine.

Performance art In 2013 Norris was a part of a group exhibition and performance titled "Radical Presence: Black Performance in Contemporary Art" This exhibition, held at The Studio Museum in Harlem, was a view of performance art by Black Visual Artists over the past five decades, and featured over a dozen live performances over a six-month period. This exhibition was documented in Hyperallergic and the New York Times

Visual art Norris's solo exhibitions include "Family Values" at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans in 2013, "Tameka Norris: Too Good For You (Introducing Meka Jean)" at the Lombard- Freid Gallery in 2014, "Almost Acquaintances" at the Ronchini Gallery in 2014, and "Not Acquiescing" at the 1708 Gallery in 2015.

In 2012 her work was included in the "MFA Annual" edition of New American Painting magazine, an anthology of MFA graduate work from more than a hundred colleges in the United States.

Her exhibition Between Bloodlines and Floodlines was shown at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, Georgia in 2015.

Film Her feature length-film Meka Jean: How She Got Good, is an internal investigation of identity and culture, starring the artist as herself in a search for identity, home, and what it means to be from New Orleans. This film was debuted during the international exhibition Prospect.3 New Orleans, and was presented as a multi-chambered installation at May Gallery, a nonprofit art space in New Orleans. This piece was shown in her 2013 "Family Values" exhibition at the Contemporary Art Center in New Orleans.

Personal Norris is alternately known as Meka Jean, a name given to her during childhood.