Jack Youngerman: Recent Drawings

The carefully calibrated tension that first emerged in his work in the mid-1950s continues to characterize this current series of drawings.  Inspired by forms found in nature as well as in non-western art, Youngerman’s dynamic compositions in high-keyed colors have always been characterized by strong positive/negative and figure/ground relationships.  Now, these colorful explorations of symmetry and asymmetry are softened by the presence of fields of color that simultaneously contain and diffuse the forms they enclose.  Working extensively in colored pencil for the first time, Youngerman found the medium perfectly suited to achieve a range and depth of nuanced colors that suggested new compositional directions.  Working on images that began as studies for wood relief paintings, and building up the image surface with layers of three or four colors, led to a pulsating series of drawings that suggest the spiritual force of the natural world that Youngerman has continuously mined to generate work in all media – paintings, sculpture, reliefs and prints.   

See below for full press release and selected works.