Description
OD Photo Prize 2025 | Award Winner
J.A. Young [b.1986, USA] is a self taught, experimental mixed media artist and photographer based in the American South. Her practise begun as recently as 2023 and her work has already gained recognition widely. Standing out amongst OD Photo Prize 2024 submissions as a Judges Pick. Then in 2025, her debut solo monograph was shortlisted for the prestigious Les Rencontres d’Arles Author Book Award. Winning OD Photo Prize 2025 with the latest chapter of her ongoing series, Angels.
Young’s research-based practice draws on a range of influences (e.g., cultural anthropology, world mysticism, and the occult) to critically engage contemporary socio-political and ecological issues. Thematically, Young’s work explores how humanity has abused its own technological innovations to seize control of an entire planet: from the cultivation of fire to the advent of agriculture, all the way to the nuclear era and the age of the internet.
Artist Statement |
Angels draws on cultural anthropology, world mysticism, and the occult to critically engage contemporary socio-political and ecological issues, exploring how humanity has abused its own technological innovations to dominate the planet. From the cultivation of fire and the advent of agriculture to the nuclear era and the age of the internet… READ MORE
Artist Statement | “In ANGELS, I explore a dimension of political power that often goes ignored in contemporary, materialist Western culture: the world of the occult. Continuing my core critique of corporate, state, and religious institutions the world over, in this series, I delve deeper to examine the hidden forces that drive and manipulate human actions and events.
My work remains rooted in my established methodology: a research-driven practice that engages photography, appropriated archival materials, and intuitive inquiry to explore the complexities of contemporary existence and metaphysical realities. Using both personal and public domain images as raw materials or substrates, my process begins with an initial deconstruction of the source material through radical re-framing and structural distortion.
This foundational intervention is then followed by a multi-layered transformation that includes darkroom experimentation, physical print manipulation, overpainting, and rephotography. Maintaining no loyalty to the original image, the resulting compositions are at once spatially disorienting and emotionally precise.”
— J.A. Young
All print enquiries:
tom@opendoors.gallery
+44 (0)7769922824
