Hello and welcome to my page, I am a Visual Artist, Mixed/Multi Media
Jason has a Bachelor's in Communications Design from Emily Carr University (2002-2008). After graduation, he worked as a freelance graphic designer but left the industry about eight years ago to focus on art. The pandemic, though challenging as it was, has been an incredible catalyst for growth, both personally and artistically. Over the last four years, he has been selling his work privately through Instagram. As of 2024, he has sold over 50 original paintings and shipped his work to collectors across Canada and the United States. Jason has participated in three group shows; the Queer Art Festival: Community Show 2021 at the SUM Gallery, The Vancouver Outsider Arts Festival 2021 at the Roundhouse Community Center, and the Inverted Pyramid Series: Intend To Upend at the James Black Gallery in early August 2022. Jason is currently developing his online artist residency for the Hammock Collective (@hammockresidency). For this project, he is creating a series of 28 abstract portraits based on old family photos. This work will explore family narratives and the artist's lived experience with mental health, trauma, and disability. The project goes live (online) starting May 1, 2024, and is funded through the Canada Council.
Contact Details
Young, Jason
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Samples of my work
 10-2024-02-26-10-20-29.JPG)
Artist Statement
Relational / Reflexive is Jason's debut solo show. It will chart the development of his practice and survey 32 works from the last five years. Thematically, it will explore the relationships between painting and drawing, art and psychology, self and other. Aesthetically, this show presents various image-making approaches, from mixed media to oil painting. All his art is handmade; no computers are used. Abstraction, spontaneity, and play are at the heart of his art practice. Jason creates automatic, abstract portraits from life (in-person) of the queer people he meets. Using the energy of the moment and the mutual vulnerability between himself and the subject, Jason seeks to find new ways of conveying identities, emotions, and narratives in his paintings. This work strives to investigate the space between queerness and abstraction through deconstructed portraiture, honouring actual members of Vancouver's Queer community. The portraits attempt to interpret the subject's identity by transcribing the physical and psychic space between himself and the subject through intuitive, bold mark-making and color. For most of 2023, Jason explored the relationship with self through self-portraits and double self-portraits and figures.