Coen Young
PROJECT
Coen Young’s works explore the relationship between painting and analogue photographic processes, using material surfaces to examine how images are made and perceived. 2020 presents a year of digital information overload in physical form. The work reproduces more than a thousand images sourced from YouTube and news platforms, including events such as the Black Lives Matter movement, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Summer bushfires across Australia and Brexit, the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union. The images are all becquerel daguerreotypes, created using an early photographic process that develops images on a metal plate. Each daguerreotype acts as a tiny screen, collectively forming the modern equivalent of a history painting.
The acquisition of this artist’s work is supported by the Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists
ABOUT
Coen Young’s work explores how painting intersects with analogue photographic processes, including silver-based photography and other techniques. Young focuses on how images are produced and perceived, emphasising the surface as both object and image.
After graduating from the National Art School in Sydney, Young exhibited widely across Australia, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Canberra, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. His work is held in public and private collections in Australia and internationally.