Adrian Norvid

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Adrian Norvid, "Soft Serve," 2022

installation view at VivianeArt (photo by Kelly Hofer)

If doodling was an ice cream flavour, we’d likely get brain-freeze and a tummy ache from Montreal artist Adrian Norvid’s drawings. His immersive show, Soft Serve, at VivianeArt in Calgary until July 31, offers generous scoops of tragicomic characters, hypnotic patterning and witty vernacular, all with a decidedly DIY aesthetic. Impulsive, yet carefully crafted, the show flaunts Norvid’s interest in obscure cultural objects. 

Central to the exhibition is the 25-foot-long Soft Serve Penitentiary, a cutaway view of a comical jail inhabited by raccoons, hippos, foxes and other animals that act as jailers, yet also party with human inmates. 

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Adrian Norvid, "Soft Serve Penitentiary" (detail), 2017

Flashe on six sheets of paper, 9" x 29" (photo by Guy L’Heureux)

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kellyhofer

Adrian Norvid, "Soft Serve Penitentiary" (detail), 2017

Flashe on six sheets of paper, 9" x 29" (photo by Guy L’Heureux)

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Norvid, who was born in London and teaches drawing at Concordia University, says the work was partly inspired by a slapstick prison scene in a 1917 Ernst Lubitsch film, The Merry Jail. In clever fashion, the prison walls act like drawings within a drawing, creating a disturbing parallel universe filled with obscene graffiti, seedy bathroom scenes and references to famous people and fictional characters. Norvid describes the drawing as “an associative mass of iconic, kitsch jailhouse imagery and cross-species hijinks.” 

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Adrian Norvid, “Soft Serve Penitentiary” (detail), 2017

Flashe on six sheets of paper, 9’ x 29’ (photo by Guy L’Heureux)

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Adrian Norvid, “Soft Serve Penitentiary," 2017

Flashe on six sheets of paper, 9’ x 29’ (photo by Guy L’Heureux)

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A banner welcoming British singer Kate Bush hangs centred at the top. The star looks exasperated as she stands near her limousine outside the prison walls. As we travel through Norvid's dense imagery, we are pulled into scenes reminiscent of a lowbrow mall, an obscene spa or a hippie commune. The jail is equipped with an ice cream bar and features a knitting bee led by a donkey. An elephant warden downs beer in a crowded room with a disco ball, humongous speakers, and a poster advertising Chug Chug in the Jug. It’s a wacky and chaotic vision that includes sickly blotches and stains. 

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Adrian Norvid, “Eyeball Box,” 2021

Flashe on Tyvek, 30” x 35” (photo by Guy L’Heureux)

In contrast, an array of 60 smaller paper works made in 2020 and 2021, are tacked to adjacent walls. While obsessive, they are more simply orchestrated and made with humble materials. Sizes vary. There’s no pretence or pomposity here. Individual aspects, possibly sprung from larger works, get their own space. A girl chopped in two is comical yet sinister. A cube covered in eyeballs twitches in nervous anticipation. A woman in black heels hangs out on Easy Street. Sometimes an image or phrase operates as a pun. A butler holds a tray with his own severed head. Has he lost his mind or become a slave to his job? What to make of a polka-dotted barrel or an orchestra of spuds, in harmonious orange and red, singing “Hot potato, hot potato”? 

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Adrian Norvid, “Polka Dot Barrel,” 2021

Flashe on Tyvek, 36” x 28” (photo by Guy L’Heureux)

Norvid, who has an MFA from York University in Toronto, earned a bachelor’s degree in music at the same university. His musicality, sometimes expressed through performances at his exhibitions, is also apparent in how he choreographs his work. A row of portraits includes a boxer holding up his red-gloved fists, a jovial baker offering his wares, and a cross-eyed buxom blond. To the left, a double popsicle teases out ideas about food, passion and consumption. Below, paper sculptures sit on low platforms. Empty shopping bags with the catchy jingle, “Snatch this up,” they have the allure of high-end designer purses. 

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Adrian Norvid, "Snooty Street," 2021, “Popsicle,” 2022, "This Is the Spot" and "Lego Bag," 2021

installation view at VivianeArt, Calgary (photo by Kelly Hofer)

Soft Serve, like a chocolate-dipped ice cream cone with sprinkles, entices us on a wild ride with its luminous colour, witty wordplay and visual distortions. At once escapist, lowbrow and disarming, it also peddles false hope and allows us to ponder the absurdities of Western culture. ■

Adrian Norvid, Soft Serve, at VivianeArt in Calgary from June 18 to July 31, 2022.

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