Nick Young
Artist Statement
“With every piece decisions are made intuitively. Not every decision is right, so then begins the layering process of patching, repairing, and re-exposing, until it has been wrestled tired and has found resolution. It is only now that I feel the work is complete and the result is a layered dialogue of lessons learnt, accidents, and desires freed.”
Artist Bio
Contemporary mixed media artist, Nick Young, was born in Ottawa and now resides in Toronto, Canada. He holds a degree in Architecture from the University of Toronto and practiced professionally for 10 years. In 2009, Nick became a full-time artist and his work has now been exhibited in galleries across Canada, published in architectural and design magazines, and acquired by corporate and private collectors across the globe.
His architectural background and the urban landscape strongly influence his style. Working in plan, section, and elevation, each painting is an abstraction and exploration of new spaces through the fundamentals of composition, texture, and colour. Relying on intuition, rather than preconceived images, each painting is a result of layers upon layers of quick gestures. This palimpsest approach of adding, deleting, and leaving traces of layers past, gives a strong sense of memory and atmosphere to each piece. Most importantly, Nick’s objective through his art is to achieve a heightened contemplative emotional response.
Like a city’s fabric, structural and organic forms merge, and boundaries become blurred, in an attempt to create a visual poetry.
“I try to apply colours like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music” (Joan Miro).
Education
- 2002 Bachelor of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture Landscape and Design, University of Toronto
Canadian Millennium Scholarship
UTAP Scholarship
Thesis Honors
- 1995 Honors Commerce Degree, Year One, University of Ottawa
Selected Exhibitions
- 2018 PROCESS: THE ARTIST’S JOURNEY, Space Gallery, Denver
- 2016 RAW BEAUTY, Gallery 133, Toronto
- 2015 ART HAMPTONS, The Original Fine Art Fair of the Hamptons, New York
- 2015 HAPPENING, Gallery 133, Toronto
- 2015 LIFE IS COLOURFUL, Art Show and Fundraiser is Support of CAMH, Toronto
- 2015 THE ARTIST PROJECT, Toronto
- 2014 COLOUR OF THE CITY, Jane Roos Gallery, Toronto
- 2014 EXHIBITION OF SMALLS, Koyman Galleries, Ottawa
- 2014 ART YARD, Toronto
- 2013 CITY FABRICS, Koyman Galleries, Ottawa
- 2013 TORONTO ART EXPO, Toronto
- 2013 TORONTO ARTIST PROJECT, Toronto
- 2013 TORONTO OUTDOOR ART EXHIBITION, Toronto
- 2012 TORONTO ARTIST PROJECT, Toronto
- 2012 QUEEN WEST ART CRAWL, Toronto
- 2012 EXHIBITION OF SMALLS, Koyman Galleries, Ottawa
- 2011 FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL MONTREAL EN ARTS (FIMA), Montreal
- 2011 SELECTED ARTISTS EXHIBITION, Terence Robert Gallery, Ottawa