Ronald Young
Black Jack, Missouri
I create mixed media sculptures from recycled objects from my immediate environment which I deconstruct and reassemble into mixed media power sculptures.
Message
Ronald (Ron) Young, an artist and educator based in St. Louis, Missouri, channels the stark realities of social, political and cultural decay into his studio practice. His mixed-media sculptures are born from the remnants of a crumbling urban environment - weathered doors, rusted tools, decaying wood molding, and abandoned bricks, among other discarded objects. These materials, once symbols of neglect and decline, are transformed into poignant artwork that reflects the resilience and resourcefulness of African-Americans navigating a landscape of systemic neglect and diminishing opportunities. Ron's work resonates with the spiritual narratives of a community that, in the face of adversity, continues the African tradition of using and reusing what society discards to craft a powerful statement about survival and hope amidst decay.
Ron earned his MFA from the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art at Washington University in St. Louis, where he was awarded a scholarship through the Chancellor's Graduate Fellowship Program. In 2007, he also received a Fulbright Scholarship to study in Japan. His works are included in the collections of the St.Louis University Art Musuem and the Woodruff Library at the Atlanta University Center, where he completed his undergraduate studies at Clark/Atlanta University. Additionally, his works are in private collections in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, Little Rock, Omaha, Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia. A retired art teacher , Ron travels extensively both domestically and abroad. He maintains a private studio in St. Louis and frequently lectures about his art and travel experiences.
Statement
My current studio practice involves recycling found objects from my immediate environment. I collect bricks, old and decayed decorative architectural features, broken tools and rusty metals which I deconstruct and reassemble into mixed media sculpture. There are multiple levels of meanings to be derived from my harvesting of objects reflecting the diasporic traditions of spirituality carried to America by West Africans as a result of the transatlantic slave trade. It is a blend of practices from the people of the Congo/Benin/Togo and Nigeria. I use assemblage to recontextualize materials into power objects by combining the African traditions of ancestry figures, mask, sculpture, and Nkisi nKondi.
My work is about the intersection of ideas and materials, visually represented through juxtaposition of objects to invoke meaning which are both lyrical and visceral. The works are intentionally ambiguous and, just like the society they come from, full of contradictions. Embedded in the narrative of my assemblages are concepts of making connections between the past and the present, America and Africa, and the physical and the spiritual world. The works embody the collective consciousness of generations of African Americans rooted in aesthetic traditions of Sankofa: the African concept of understanding one’s past in order to go forward.
