Jay Younger is a Brisbane based artist, curator and academic with over 30 years of practice.
Generally Younger’s artworks take form as photomedia, public art and installation with the purpose of interrogating the position and status of women within physical space, spatial politics, and the invisible socialised barriers that contain and deny access to other spaces. Often her artwork posits different viewpoints in tension within a matrix of oppositional forces to ask questions about the human subject immersed in the conflicting agendas of politicised space.
Hot getaway cars, sugar coated cement mixers, buckets of boiling blood, bigger than really big wigs, live participants, or a swarm of bump-n-go motorised pink glitter stilettoes are the sort of elements one might find in Younger’s installations. Interests in materiality and behaviour manifest as an assorted array of slimy, fleshy, sparkly, sticky things which ooze, drip and occasionally gush.
Younger’s work has been exhibited extensively both in Australia and overseas. Her work has been included in national survey exhibitions at the major state galleries and her exclusively photographic works are represented in major public collections throughout Australia.
Within Younger’s curatorial practice – specifically integrated art and architecture projects in the public realm – most often popular views of public art are challenged. Her focus is on freedom of artistic expression and the expression of difference in the public realm.
For Younger it is important to emphasise the role of art within the public sphere. Art that appears in the public realm and activates public space, is not only political it makes space public thereby linking freedom of artistic expression to democratic principles. Furthermore, public art can be seen as opening up a space within the public sphere where difference can be seen and experienced.
Significant permanent public art projects curated by Younger are: Brisbane Magistrates Courts including 14 Queensland artists (2002-04) and Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law including Yayoi Kusama, Sally Gabori, and Gemma Smith (2008-12). In June 2013 QEII COL received the Art and Architecture Award from the Australian Institute of Architects. The impact of her success in the field of public art has been acknowledged in receiving the AIA President’s Award in 2012. Currently Jay is the lead curator of the Gateways Public Art Commission for the Commonwealth Games and the Gold Coast (2016-17).
For more information please visit the Artist’s Website –Â www.jayyounger.com.au
Image: against the stream as always
Installation detail:
2017
Site-specific installation
Dimensions variable
Photo: Jay Younger