You are here: American University College of Arts & Sciences American University Museum 2019 Kenneth Victor Young: Continuum

Kenneth Victor Young: Continuum

April 6-May 26, 2019
Curated by Dexter Wimberly
Presented by the Alper Initiative for Washington Art

Kenneth Victor Young, Butterfly

Kenneth Victor Young, Butterfly, c. 1968. Acrylic on canvas, 46 × 55 in. Courtesy of Bethesda Fine Art.

Kenneth Victor Young, Fireball

Kenneth Victor Young, Fireball, c. 1968. Acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 in. Courtesy of Margot Stein.

Kenneth Victor Young, Free

Kenneth Victor Young, Free, 1972. Acrylic on canvas, 55 x 58 in. Courtesy of Bethesda Fine Art.   

Free Parking: Kenneth Victor Young

Related events

Spring Opening Reception
April 6, 6-9 p.m.
free and open to all

Free Parking: Kenneth Victor Young
April 18, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
free and open to all

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Kenneth Victor Young (1933-2017) moved to Washington, DC, in 1964 where he began to paint abstract forms with washed acrylics on unprimed canvas. Young’s artistic philosophy was to bring order out of chaos. His studies in physics and the natural sciences at Indiana University informed a different imagery — a fusion of brilliant colors. Young's knowledge of form and matter gave his paintings a spatial intensity, and he infused this space with multiple orbs of color held together in molecular suspension. Kenneth Victor Young had an illustrious 35-year career as an exhibition designer for the Smithsonian Institution, and his extensive travels during this time helped inform his cosmic abstract style of painting. His love for jazz influenced the movement and vitality of his work. He is known for his floating colored orbs — imagery that attempts to bring order to chaos and that comments on the pandemonium of life.The selection is representative of the main aspects of his oeuvre as it evolved over several decades. It includes a wide variety of collages in diverse techniques: both early works and those of his mature period; on very small scale and large ones; two-dimensional and sculptural.