31 celebrates over three decades of creative practice by Margaret River artist Christopher Young. This exhibition reflects a life committed to making, questioning and evolving.
Christopher Young | 31
From Saturday 8 August 2026
To Sunday 18 October 2026
It is an acknowledgment that artistic practice is rarely linear, but shaped by persistence through uncertainty, shifts in direction and the quiet accumulation of work.
Christopher Young
Christopher Young was born in small-town New Zealand in the mid-seventies, a landscape that quietly shaped his early sense of place and perception. After completing his studies, he moved to Germany in 1996, where the challenges of language and cultural distance fostered both isolation and acute observation. In 2002, he settled in Western Australia, where another form of remoteness—geographic and ideological—continues to inform his practice.
Isolation threads through Young’s life and work: from semi-rural beginnings, to the solitude of navigating a foreign culture, to the expansive distances of Australia. These experiences have cultivated a sensitivity to context and dislocation. His work often explores the coding of images, questioning how meaning is constructed when a shared cultural framework is absent or fragmented. Without a fixed personal cultural library to draw upon, Young’s practice navigates ambiguity, creating space for interpretation, misreading and layered understanding.
Learn more about Chris at zebra-factory.com
Image: Christopher Young, Drei #93, 2007, self portrait.
31 marks not just the passing of time, but the endurance required to sustain a creative life. In an industry often defined by visibility and validation, this exhibition foregrounds resilience. It reveals both moments of recognition and the many unseen, unresolved or deeply personal works that sit alongside them.
Spanning photography, installation, video, social practice and work within museums, Young’s practice draws together diverse modes of making and thinking. 31 offers insight into a practice grounded in community, experimentation and long-term commitment - honouring both the visible outcomes and the processes that sustain them.
Image: Christopher Young, Seven #21, 2012, photograph.