Meet Aaron Norris

Today we’d like to introduce you to Aaron Norris.

Hi Aaron, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I realized from a very early age (as I’m sure most artists do) that I loved to draw and paint and create things. My parents tell me that they noticed my affinity for drawing when I was four or five years old. It was my first hobby you might say and it’s a passion that I’ve carried with me throughout my life. After high school, I attended Central Missouri State University and received a Bachelor of Fine Art. After I graduated, I accepted a position at Honeywell Aerospace where I still work today. I’ve also been oil painting and creating art in tandem with my day job ever since. I love the entire process of essentially creating something out of nothing. From the process of fabricating a frame to perfectly stretching the canvas to putting brush to canvas and obsessing over every little detail. I don’t know why, but this process is very fulfilling for me.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I’ve been very fortunate in my artistic career in that I’ve never really needed to rely on monetizing my work to pay the bills. I’ve always had day job and painted on the side. However, over the past couple of years, the pendulum has been slowly swinging the other direction. My work has been well-received by the world and is selling steadily. I began primarily as a landscape painter and I guess you could say I’ve been transitioning into a sports and pop culture commission artist. The road I’ve traveled so far has been a consistent, organic journey in which I had to teach myself how to perfect certain tasks along the way. Fabricating custom canvases for instance is something I wasn’t very good at in the beginning, but it’s something I’ve been able to perfect along the way.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Most of my work is primarily specifically commissioned by clients with a wide range of subject matter, so I never know what the next client is going to want. I cut my teeth as a large-scale landscape painter, but as of late, I’ve been focusing on sports and pop culture. There are so many good artists out there, but if there are any aspects of my work that set me apart, they would probably be the scale and realism of a lot of my work. Some of my paintings are six feet tall and ten feet wide. My work is also done in a highly realistic style that I think makes it recognizable.

Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
My parents raised me and my two brothers on a farm outside of Creighton, Missouri. We were surrounded by timber, pasture and cattle. Growing up, I didn’t take the time to appreciate how lucky I was but, looking back, it was like a beautiful, scenic bubble where we were free to just go outside and do whatever we wanted. We spent our entire summers outside swimming in ponds, building treehouses, fishing, and playing games. I went to a very small, rural school where I excelled in sports and art.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: aaronnorrisstudio.com
• Instagram: @aaronnorrisstudio
• Twitter: @norrisartist