PRESS RELEASE
Michael Young: Strata Books and Verb-ers
Aug 26 – Nov 11, 2023
Holly Johnson Gallery is pleased to present Michael Young: Strata Books & Verb-ers, an exhibition of recent drawings on paper by the Austin-based artist. A reception will be held on Saturday, August 26th from 5:00-8:00 p.m. This exhibition marks the artists’ second solo exhibition with the Dallas gallery.
Over the last 40 years Michael Young has developed a diverse kaleidoscope of abstract geometric paintings, installations, drawings and most recently architecture. This exhibition presents drawings representing two interconnected subjects.
Central to his work is an emphasis on facture, an attunement to the methodologies of drawing and construction of his work with the primary focus being the relationship between the disciplines of geology and geometry forms. His fundamental formal visual language of line and shape has developed from geologic references; line from compressed stratification deposits and aggregate granular shape as defined by erosion processes. Since 1980 he has amassed an expansive lexicon of aggregate, sands and sediments that he has collected from many arid landscape and deserts such as the Great Basin, the Mojave, the Colorado Plateau, the Sonoran, the Chihuahua, and the Kalahari in Botswana and Namibia.
The Strata Book drawings use these sands to reflect the actual mineral color and geology of their place. The Verb-ers drawings focus on a longstanding interest in pictographs and glyphs relating to the evolution and formation of early forms of visual languages.
The artist received an MFA from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT (1977) and a BFA from The University of Texas at Austin, TX (1975). He has participated in the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as the Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting. He was recipient of the Alice B. Kimball Travelling Fellowship from Yale University and has received several grants and awards including a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; a Mazer Faculty Development Grant from Brandeis University, and a Creative Arts Program Grant from New York State Council for the Arts. Young was born in Houston, Texas and currently lives and works in Austin, Texas.
Young’s works have been included in numerous gallery exhibitions throughout the U.S. and abroad at galleries such as Blum Helman Gallery, Pace Prints, Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Annina Nosei Gallery, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Lorence Monk Gallery, Betty Cunningham Gallery, Tony Shafrazi Gallery, Nohra Haime Gallery, Michael Kohn Gallery, and CDS Gallery. Prestigious museum institutions have also exhibited the work such as The Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Whitney Museum of American Art at the Equitable Center, Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art, the Denver Art Museum, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, and the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University.
His works are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Smithsonian Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Berkeley Museum, Berkeley, CA; The Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY; Neuberger Museum of Art, S.U.N.Y. at Purchase, NY; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; and the Seibu Museum, Tokyo, Japan.
Holly Johnson Gallery is located at 1845 E. Levee Street #100, Dallas, TX 75207. Gallery hours are 11 to 5, Tuesday – Saturday. For information, call 214-369-0169, email info@hollyjohnsongallery.com, or visit www.hollyjohnsongallery.com.