'Drawing in Ten Parts', 1981

Art/Empire/Industry Sydney, installation view

DRAWING IN TEN PARTS
1981


"Drawing in Ten Parts consists of ten very large (127 x 228 cm) pencil drawings in which Young drew a series of closely arrayed vertical lines from top to bottom of the paper, stopping the line only when the pencil lead broke. Young then drew a series of horizontal pines in the form of dashes which created the metaphor of woven fabric… The grid as icon of Western rationalism seems to come under the influence of ‘imperfect’, irregular, rhythmic pulsations which obey laws that are indeterminate and unpredictable. Young infiltrates the grid with the idiosyncratic wavering of hand drawn lines and the capriciousness of the randomized snapping of pencil leads. In this way he transforms the rational-geometrical grid of modernism into something more organic; less a frozen ‘object’ or an ‘image’ and more a process, or energy pattern."

Graham Coulter-Smith
1993