Marie Young is an artist from Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania working across oil and acrylic painting, sculpture, mixed media collage, and digital illustration in Procreate.

She creates richly textured, slightly off-kilter worlds inhabited by characters (animals and other figures) who seem to have arrived in the middle of a story. She is interested in creating the sense that the main action exists just beyond what we can see.

Whimsy is a huge part of her visual language, yet she is especially interested in what happens when we take playfulness seriously. She strives to create work that is beautiful without being merely decorative, and mysterious without becoming inaccessible. Curiosity, wonder, humor, tension, and a little visual excess are all welcome in her work.

Her influences wander freely from fables and shaded forests to Japanese screens, Art Deco geometry, fragments of old wallpaper, decorative objects, vintage ornament, and the occasional odd thing she saved because she was certain it would become useful someday. Moving between materials is part of the process. Painting may lead to sculpture, sculpture to printmaking, and a scrap from a drawer may become the beginning of an entire piece.

She earned a B.A. in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in Art History from the University of Maryland. That background shapes the way she looks at images, objects, ornament, and the long human impulse to make meaning through beautiful things.

She shares her home studio with her husband and their many, many cats.