November 5, 2007

Collages inspired by Middle Eastern travels, fossil hunting and Thoreau

Andrew Young: relic

November 16 – December 29, 2007

Chicago---Alfedena Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by nationally acclaimed collage artist, Andrew Young, titled relic, from November 16 – December 29, 2007. This is the artist’s first solo show in Chicago since 2005, and his first at Alfedena Gallery, and displays over twenty-five new collages created between the years 2006-2007.  A reception for the artist will be held on Friday, November 16, 5:00-8:00 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Andrew Young (b. 1962 Mt. Kisco, NY; lives and works in Chicago) is an artist who has established a reputation over the past twenty years, for coaxing from self-made elixirs of mineral pigments and hand-aged papers elegant compositions that resemble the partially excavated walls of rooms once lit by lamp light. Imbued in Young’s enigmatic layers of Middle Eastern ornamental designs, Thoreau-like floral and naturalist imagery is an inescapable sense of history, evoked through the simulated textures of anonymous, smoke-stained plaster walls, crackling paint and distressed architectural ornamentation. Young creates images that are not simply an attempt at depicting place, but rather are searches for the material embodiment of life experiences. This direct interaction with the physical world is partly the result of Young’s initial training as a scientist while in college at the University of California at Berkeley. A passionate fossil hunter, he continually searches the prehistoric coal beds of the Midwest for the ghostly impressions of extinct flora and fauna using their shapes for inspiration in creating the poetic, fictional gossamer plant and insect imagery whose positive and negative shapes in his collages emphasizes the paradoxical relationship between their disappearing physical bodies and the invisible nature of time.

The aura of overseas lands, visited but not completely understood, that permeates his collages (through the inclusion of pages of Chinese text, cut-up numerals, postcards, and long hand journal entries) is inspired in part by Young’s memories of receiving mysteriously wrapped packages from his father, who was a member of the foreign service. Though eventually amassing his own collection of unique, indigenous artifacts from his own world travels, Young never forgot the initial intoxicating feeling of holding strangely printed papers, wrappers and labels that had absorbed the air and soil of these seemingly mythical places. Conveying such travels in his work are images as overt in symbolism as the ubiquitous travel postcard, to more veiled icons such as insect and plant specimens, butterflies (a Christian symbol for resurrection), as well as birds (a symbol for the soul in Ancient Egypt). Embedded within the matrices of “open” spaces and “solid” walls of colored and toned paper, these images visually approximate the ability to not only experience time, but to see it, as Young creates hypnotic layers of translucent history that visually unfold.

Flattened out planes of creased, worn-looking paper are the unlikely sublime “empty spaces” in Young’s compositions, serving as both image and field, positive and negative space. These rectangular shapes work as flexible, modular components that adapt to his intuitive and informal organization of narrow vertical grids. But while Young’s papers appear to be “found” materials, they are actually created by him. Staining rice papers with various natural pigments, he creates a range of arid terra cottas, sun-bleached ochres and brilliant cobalt blues that are capable of transporting one instantly to the streets of the Mediterranean or the Middle East. This is in part the result of the depths to which Young goes to obtain his own pigments. A deep, reddish-brown that seems carved from the walls of ancient Mesopotamia was in actuality painstakingly extracted from the minerals of a stone Young brought back with him from an excursion to Pakistan. The integrity of such raw materials is an important part of his conceptual framework. His resulting images, that layer the most basic shapes and subtle colors, rely on the intrinsic character of materials that originate from the real world, not solely from the artist’s tool box. Such materials are invested with an additional intensity of emotions and associations.

Andrew Young received an MFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1989, and a BA in biology from the University of California at Berkeley, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1987. He has had 56 solo shows, and has been included in over 100 group shows. Reviews of his work have appeared in Art in America, Artforum, Arts Magazine, ARTnews, Art & Antiques, Dialogue, The New Art Examiner, the Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Reader, The Boston Globe, The Nation, The Oregonian, and The Charlotte Observer. His work is included in over 36 corporate and public collections. In 2007 his worked was acquired for the permanent collections of the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX, The Miami Art Museum, and the San Antonio Museum of Art.

To view images of the exhibition visit the web site, www.alfedenagallery.com.

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