Cathie Joy Young

Cathie Joy Young was born in N. Dakota and her interest in art came early in life. Her father, a sergeant in the air force, was also a painter. He encouraged his children to draw at a very early age and she has been creating art ever since.

“My work balances between the expression of hope versus the expression of despair having aspects of comedy, whimsy, tragedy and a skewed perception of an imagined world.” Young says. “Theses paintings come from a body of work which I began about a year after the start of the war in Iraq. None of the content or compositions was preconceived. I find that the process leads to the content, and the meaning reveals itself gradually to me. Sometimes long after a piece is completed. Even so, the narrative stays open and nothing is literal leaving each painting very much open to interpretation.”

“Because I am not a slave to content I can approach and pursue the work with an abstract sensibility, concentrating on all the formal relationships such as color, composition, space and movement. Patiently waiting for forms and structures to be revealed. I apply a lot of paint and water and let it drip. I scrape through the surface to reveal layers underneath and when I start to see what I am looking for I emphasize it. What I end up with are figures, beasts, structures and elements in ambiguous spaces, which, due to the cheerfulness of color and composition, belie some of the underlying darkness in the narrative. Above all I strive to keep my work visually dynamic and appealing.”

“One of my greatest hopes,” Young says “is that my paintings are more interesting to look at than what I have to say about the work, or about myself.”