Norm Paris Cover

The Java Project is pleased to present Cover, a solo exhibition by Norm Paris. The idea of covering, whether in reference to material overlay or the reinterpretation of previous artworks, is at the center of this exhibition. About Norm Paris, Cove Curated by Carl Gunhouse 252 Java Street, Brooklyn, New York Oct 2 – Nov 1 Opening Fri Oct 2nd 6-9PM By Appointment The Java Project is pleased to present Cover , a solo exhibition by Norm Paris. The idea of covering, whether in reference to material overlay or the reinterpretation of previous artworks, is at the center of this exhibition. When a band covers a song, their music is always heard in relation to the original no matter how stylistically distant from the source. And so it is with Paris’s large-scale record cover drawings and resin comic book sculptures, which reinterpret and mask adolescent legacy media formats. In Stone Setting (Paranoid), Paris has imagined the quintessential Black Sabbath album as a tombstone adorned with rocks. Both a reference to the Jewish tradition of placing stones upon a grave and a nod to the bad pun of “rock music”. Paris employs a dark humor that isn’t so much casual as it is obsessive and deeply felt. The graphite-rendered record, installed on the wall, disconnected from its original scale, creates the illusion of rocks that appear suspended against the surface of the sleeve, a parlor trick that confuses the normal axis of gravity. There are simultaneous poetic and concrete logics to Paris’s drawings and Reader sculptures, which use old comic books as the first physical layer of a multi-stage resin casting process. The printed matter is rendered almost illegible by the blankets of resin poured upon it. With the comic no longer accessible, the sculptures become relics to the act of a child’s reading, of turning pages. They also point towards the struggle to read; an experience culled from the artist’s own history. The implicit half cylinder created by the pages is made concrete, both crystallizing and obscuring the hermetic worlds embedded within this physical media. Norm Paris is an artist, curator, and professor based in both Brooklyn and Sag Harbor. He has had solo exhibitions in New York at Transmitter Gallery, The Proposition, and Tiger Strikes Asteroid, and has been featured in exhibitions at venues such as Ortega y Gasset and Monya Rowe Gallery in New York, Kopeikin Gallery, Los Angeles, Hilbert Raum, Berlin, and The Print Center in Philadelphia. Paris has participated in museum exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, The Jewish Museum in New York and the Weatherspoon Art Museum in North Carolina. He was a 2020 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Printmaking/Drawing/Book Arts and a 2015-16 fellow at the Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in New York. Paris’s work and curatorial projects have been featured in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, Maake Magazine, Art Papers, Martha’s Quarterly, and Gorky’s Granddaughter. He is a founding member of the artist-run non-profit Tiger Strikes Asteroid New York, is a Professor at Rhode Island School of Design and previously taught at the Yale School of Art. Carl Gunhouse is an Adjunct Faculty member at Montclair State University. He received his M.F.A. from Yale University and B.F.A. from Fordham University. Carl’s work has exhibited at Photoville, Spring Break Art Show, the Center for Photography at Woodstock, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Modern Art, the Foto Galería FCE-UNC, Córdoba, Argentina, as well as shows in England, Russia, Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland, Finland and New Zealand. His pictures have been featured in Vice, The New York Times and Maximum Rocknroll. He has had monographs published by Halfmoon Press and Arts & Sciences Press. He is a co-founder and director of Transmitter Gallery. He is director of Waal-boght Press. Image: Stone Setting (Paranoid) (detail), Graphite on paper, 72 x 72 inches, 2025-26 For press, general inquiries and Appointments, please contact Carl Gunhouse at newxschool@msn.com or 917.881.3576 Read more Toggle Mixed media Sculpture Multi-disciplinary Installation Drawing