Selected Reviews
Horsing Around
Art & Antiques, December 1995
- George Melrod
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Horsing Around
In paint, fabric, and photos, December’s artists discover surreal beauty behind the ordinary. At once ethereal and lush, fecund and melancholy, Andrew Young’s exquisitely rendered paintings are seductive in a slightly gothic way, like a vase of fragrant lilacs in the foyer of a once grand, now decrepit hotel. Previously a microbiology student, Young traveled on a scholarship to Siena, Italy, where he became enamored with the techniques of 15th century Italian painters. This influence remains evident in his technique of using egg tempera on wooden panels and in his sumptuous palette of autumnal creams and burnt siennas, deep vermilions, blacks, and pine greens (as in Above a Gate, to the right). In their subject matter, Young’s abstractions recall vases and flowers, architectural flourishes, art deco geometries, or floral wallpaper. The effects are vaguely funeral but also erotic, a sort of luminous, half-forgotten memory. Like background details pulled into the foreground, they leave the viewer as protagonist in a gauzy dream world. His new work is at the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago, until December 30. |
Above a Gate, 1994
Egg tempera on wood panel, 32 x 23 in. |