A rising star of the UK Outsider Art movement, Alex Young is currently preparing for his forthcoming solo show with London Miles Gallery on Thursday, April 1. Succeeding his hugely successful debut show ‘Exhibitionism’ at the Grenade Gallery in 2008, Young’s new body of work looks set to expand his artistic and conceptual horizons to even loftier new heights.Traversing the boundaries of Fine Art, Illustration, and Graffiti, Young revels in his inability to be pigeonholed. Finding inspiration in the work of both Classical and Contemporary Art masters, as well as various cannons of popular culture, his finely detailed pointillist style portraits are a trademark of his studio work. Rendered predominantly in spray paint, Young’s primary medium of choice points to years of dedication to bombing the streets as a writer – an endeavor committed to alongside years of formal art training.
Keeping separate his Graffiti and Fine Art guises, Alex Young, the artist, draws upon the similarly rich dichotomy’s evident in other pseudonymous individuals. His subjects include a burlesque dancer, S&M model, and heavy metal guitarist to name but three, whose alternate identities are all revealed through the fine illustrative detail and multi-layered symbolism evident, on closer inspection, within his monolithic portraits. Essentially, Young is reaffirming the age-old adage that one shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover; in turn condemning the widespread societal prejudice exhibited when confronted by these individuals.
A graduate of Kent Institute, and recognized as one of the UK’s top 60 most talented University leavers by Creative Review magazine in 2002, Young resided in Brighton for seven years, working predominantly as a freelance illustrator, before relocating to South London in early 2010, where he currently lives and works.
In contrast to his gallery work, his heavily stylized illustrations are primarily informed by the D.I.Y, sub-cultural paradigms of skateboarding, punk, and comic book culture of the mid-to-late-80’s. Instantly gratifying and provocative, these works display Young’s quintessential Outsider art credentials.
Speaking to him in-depth about his experiences and inspirations, it’s clear that Young is an artist continually co-opting the multitude of influences that play upon his mind. Ahead of his second solo exhibition this spring, he talks with great enthusiasm for everything from Close and Kandinksy to calligraphy and comics, giving an up close and personal insight into the foundation for his new show, and his wider artistic endeavors to date.
Can you tell us a bit about your background and first interest in art?
I was born into soaking up a lot of artwork, a lot of different stuff. Neither of my parents are artists but their knowledge of Art History is incredible. Growing up my sister and I got dragged around loads of exhibitions. My old man used to work for British Airways so we traveled a lot and every port of call we’d hit the art museums. Then in the mid-80's, when the big explosion of hip hop culture hit England, I lent more towards the graffiti side of things. That was the most exciting stuff for me: growing up in west London and seeing tags get put up, but not really understanding what they were and that it was a sub-cultural thing. Some of the first stuff I saw was skateboard graffiti and I became a skateboarder as well, so I got into these two subcultures and found a lot of comfort in them.
Skateboarding was one of those freedom activities. It was as much about hanging out and being part of something as it was being rad at it. The same with graffiti; you might not be the best stylistically but you might have done more than anyone else, you might just be out there every day. Same with skateboarding; you might not be the best but you're out there everyday; you're the dude, you're ‘that’ guy. It's all on your own terms; it's within your group, it's not societies terms. It was this kind of fraternity of weirdo's where it's like “Fuck that way of life, you're all right. Come in here, and do this, and get respect from your peers, and how good does that feel?”
Another appeal about skateboarding was all the graphics on the boards. I came into skateboarding in the late 80's when it was the era of skulls and snakes and dragons - Powell Peralta style - and then it went into World Industries which was much more radical and really offensive - just real shock stuff and constant parodies of other things in popular culture. The appeal of all those graphics was the fact that they were just rad for rad's sake; whereas the art education system was asking: “Why have you handed in this project of this monster fighting a robot with lasers coming out of their eyes?”
Alex Young’s latest exhibition A.K.A, portraits of alter egos opens on Thursday 1st April, 2010.
To Read More CLICK
www.brainofalexyoung.com
www.londonmiles.com