Nate Young works across media in a manner that challenges traditional modes of artistic production, creating work that engages with issues of race and racialization. He explores the systems and objects that impact one’s beliefs. Often in his work, Young addresses theological themes through text, diagrams, or architectural elements. Young strips away any specific content, however, leaving behind a universal lexicon of primordial signs and symbols–arrows, circles, grids, and negative spaces–that strongly suggest meaning without in fact conveying it; a profound void, at once empty and full, that invites the viewer’s activation. His works contain quiet gravitas and austerity at odds with their meticulously hand-crafted nature, prompting a post-minimalist interrogation of authority, material, and the artist’s hand.
Young (b.1981, Phoenixville, PA) received his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, CA (2009) and BA in Visual Arts Education from Northwestern College, St. Paul, MN (2004). Young attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (2009) and was invited back as Dean in 2015. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art, School of Art & Art History at the University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, IL (2016-present). Notable solo and two person exhibitions include Anthony Gallery, Chicago, IL (2024); moniquemeloche, Chicago, IL (2022, 2020, 2018, 2017); The Driehaus Museum, Chicago, IL (2022); Visual Arts Center of Richmond, VA (2017); Luce Gallery, Turin, IT (2016); Galeria Zero, Milan, IT (2016); The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia, PA (2015); among others. Notable group exhibitions include Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; MoMA PS1, New York, NY; Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA; Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL; California African American Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Patron Gallery, Chicago, IL; CANADA, NY; Front Triennial at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH (2018); and The Studio Museum, Harlem, NY, among many others.
In 2021, Young received the Joyce Foundation Artadia Award. Young’s work is in the permanent collections of Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, D.C.; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL; Fabric Workshop Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; and the Mott Warsh Collection, Flint, MI. Young lives and works in Chicago, IL.