Nate Young

(re)collection
April 21 – June 18, 2017

Nate Young presents an installation that interprets and mythologizes the life of his great-grandfather. A conceptual narrative in three parts, the works on view are inspired by personal recollection, oral history, family relics, and the unearthed bones of the horse that carried Young’s great-grandfather north during the Great Migration.

Nate Young (re)collection from Visual Arts Center of Richmond on Vimeo.

In an emotionally moving and exquisitely crafted exhibition, the artist brings together the hand-made wooden objects for which he is best known, along with jewelry making, printmaking and a sculptural sound installation made during his recent Quirk+VisArts residency. Both personally sourced and historically resonant, (re)collection reflects on the ways in which identity is formed through action and circumstance and transformed by archive and memory.

Young was born in Minneapolis, MN, and lives in Chicago, IL. He earned a M.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts in 2009 and a B.A. from Northwestern College in Minnesota in 2004. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2009, and was invited back as a dean of the residency in 2015.

Young is represented by Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago and has had solo exhibitions at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia, Penn.; Luce Gallery in Turin, Italy; and Monique Meloche Gallery. He will have another solo exhibition at Monique Meloche Gallery in September 2017. Young has participated in group exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, N.Y.; California African American Museum in Los Angeles, Calif.; and the Soap Factory’s Minnesota Biennial.

Young is the recipient of the Knight Arts Challenge Fellowship from the Knight Foundation, the Bush Fellowship for Visual Artists and the Jerome Fellowship for Emerging Artists. Young is co-founder and director of the artist-run exhibition space, The Bindery Projects, in Minneapolis, MN. He currently teaches at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The exhibition is guest curated by Melissa Messina.