Ana Young

This work is part of Curatorial+Co.'s 2026 group exhibition, 'The Beast In Me'.

Of all the internal mechanisms that drive us, perhaps the most primordial is the beast. We expel the animal, the bodily, the base in favour of the intellect, yet it is the beast that holds what is most irreducibly human—impulses and desires that precede thought: love, rage, care, protection, connection. The very thing we suppress is also the thing that touches what is most vital.

Says Ana Young of her work, "The processes behind my paintings are always marked by destruction on the path to resolution. I discard and reject what I consider not part of the whole, and the waste involved in this process is significant. The works in my 'Hidden Paintings' series become acts of repair and reuse. I confront the rage and struggle that can accompany the making process by reconstructing and salvaging, creating a new order for the painting—a slow reveal of paintings within paintings."