jlyoung

profile

Statement

After years as a film maker and then video installation artist, I have been developing work in drawing painting and print making since 2011.

As in my film making, so in my artistic practise, I am interested in narratives which reflect the human condition. The work experiments with abstraction and is characterised by a sense of movement.

My main subjects are people and the medium, while mainly oils and drawing, now includes dry point, silk screen and lino cuts, and most recently mosaic using mortar and slate, stones and pebbles and wall murals.

 

 

The above statement was written in 2016. For the following three years I had a complete block and was unable to create my own work, apart from doing things for friends and family.

Then in March 2020 we were all locked down.The enforced idleness got me going again.For months I drew everyday objects from life, getting my eye back in. Then in November 2020 I was selected for the IMG Discerning Eye national exhibition in London and subsequently sold the work.

Recognition is a great incentive and now I draw and paint all the time.

Biography

2011-12West dean College. Postgraduate diploma in painting and drawing
1988-2010Associate Senior lecturer for University of Portsmouth, co ordinating practical documentary units for the BA in Television and Film production.
1996-7University of Brighton. MA in Sequence and Editorial design
1977-98Freelance radio and video producer
1977-87Ten years outreach adult education lecturer for University of Southampton
1972-1977Community worker, Notting hill, Portsmouth
1971University of London Postgraduate diploma in education
1970University of Bristol BA Combined Honours English History of Art Philosophy

I have drawn all my life, but until five years ago it was under, rather than on top of, everything else. The full time jobs as an adventure playground worker, then student community action organiser stopped as soon as I started to have children- three altogether- but as my husband was a full time architecture student it was important to keep working.

So I juggled a number of part time jobs that I loved- radio producer ( you could bull shit your way into anything in the seventies) researcher, adult education lecturer and youth worker, until the children were all at school and Portsmouth University offered me something more substantial. But I always liked making things independently. I sold a documentary about football supporters to the BBC, got an Arts Council grant to work for two years making films with hospice patients, and then more grants to do an experimental video installation which was exhibited for four months at Portsmouth City Museum.

 When I  left the University I went to Indonesia to make a film for the charity Children on the Edge, so it wasn't until 2011, when I became a full time post graduate student at West Dean College that I finally realised how wonderful it was to have a studio and an easel and draw and paint all day.   

Exhibition History

7-10 September 2023Selected to exhibit at St.Hubert's church Idsworth for a fund raising art exhibition
13-16 April 2023Co-organised a fund raising art exhibition at St. Mary's church, Chidham, "In the Footsteps of our Ancestors"
November 2020Selected for exhibition in the IMG Discerning Eye National competition. The work was then sold
September 2016Shortlisted for National Open Art exhibition
March 2016Selected to exhibit at 40th retrospective exhibition at Oxmarket, also showing Gerald Scarfe, Peter Iden , Michael Frith et al
September 2015Selected to exhibit at Sussex Artists Awards, Pallant House Chichester
September 2015Short list for National Open Art exhibition
June 2015Selected to exhibit in Pop up National Open Art exhibition at Arundel Castle
September 2014Two entries short listed for National Open Art exhibition
June 2014Selected to exhibit at the summer exhibition, Oxmarket centre for Arts, Chichester
March-June 2013Group exhibition, Woodies restaurant, Chichester
September 2012Short list for National Open Art Competition
August 2012Awarded First Prize in Stride Open Art completion, Exhibition in Chichester, Oxmarket gallery
5July-9JulyWest Dean end of year show in association with Free Range, The Old Truman Brewery, Ely's Yard (off Brick Lane) London E1
30 June-6 july 2012West Dean Visual Arts End of year show, West Dean College
January-April 2007Portsmouth City Museum.
Life cycles- stories from canoe lake.
Solo exhibition using multiple video and sound projection