KYoung

Reimagining existing objects and turning them into something new has been a preoccupation of KYoung for as long as the artist can remember, and it is this, together with a long-held passion for photography, that has led the artist to its working process today.

KYoung makes hand-cut paper collages from found photographic material. Using editing, reframing, splicing, layering, and juxtaposition, the artist reassembles images until a different narrative emerges. KYoung then makes these collages into photographs. By returning the image to some semblance of its original state, the artist is acknowledging its legacy. To KYoung, the circle is complete.

Much of KYoung's work comes about through subconscious thought. However, the artist is fascinated by the concept of space through time; that all physical space is eventually reshaped and redefined, and that everything exists within a limited timeframe. Depiction of these thoughts is a recurring backdrop in KYoung's work, regardless of what story the artist is telling, though mostly this is visible to KYoung only in hindsight.

While Collage lends itself to describing these fragmented glimpses and suggestions of other dimensions, a photograph usually depicts a snapshot, the trapping of the moment, and a particular 'truth'. The act of 're-photography', however, liberates the photograph from this constraint; displaced images from different periods are brought together in a new, 'stacked' observation.

As such, the combination of these two working methods has become the process the artist uses to explore more specific themes, which include ideas around social constructs, gender roles and identity.