S E R I E S :   " W E S T "    2 0 2 3

Young’s series, WEST, pierces these claustrophobic visions for wider expanses. WEST taps into our most primal instincts and also our most grandiose dreams. The series features imagery, references, and obsessions of Young’s own world
built within the larger framework of the American drama. The spaghetti westerns he watched in his youth, nickel-plated revolvers, bison, rodeos, the Marlboro Cowboy before he was commercialized into oblivion, Native American chiefs before they, too, were almost driven into oblivion—they all debut in Young’s quest to confront and interrogate the idealization of the American Southwest. The breadth of this ever-expanding series is matched only by Young’s impulse to venture into America's deserts, forests, and oceans to go as far west as possible. Young uses one-of-a-kind handmade pigments to turns themes like the commercialization of cowboys into advertisements, the meaning behind the American Dream, the treatment of Indigenous people, and modern gun culture to images.