Selected Reviews
Nature Investigated
The Charlotte Observer, December 10, 2000
- Richard Maschal
Fables and Seas series (c-151), 2000
Collage of hand-painted papers, with found Chinese text and stamp, on museum board, 23 x 32 in. |
Nature Investigated
As an artist, Andrew Young is one heck of an archaeologist. Except for their size, his solidly made collages at the Hidell Brooks Gallery have the look and feel of entries from a journal. They seem made by a scientist in the field, one of those artists who in the 19th century traveled with expeditions to make drawings of exotic fauna or the pyramids. What adds to this feeling is Young’s investigation of time. By layering images and using bits of postage stamps with their implications of travel and history, he tries to use time as another dimension alongside height, width and depth. As shown in “Andrew Young: Fables and Seas” ― and another show of his at UNCC’s Rowe Arts Gallery through Dec. 4 ―the Chicago artist uses handmade paper and repeated images of birds and plants to make his collages. |
Along with bits of Chinese stamps and writing, he includes excerpts from Thoreau’s journals in his own hand. For color and some tension between the foreground and background, Young uses transparent blocks of color. As might be expected, they are mostly in earth tones, except for a piece dominated by shocking blue. Young seems not so much interested in the world as drawn to his investigation of it. Unlike a landscape artist, he doesn’t want to transmit nature’s beauty as much as record his stubborn encounter with it.