AUGUST 13 – SEPTEMBER 11, 2024

Opening Reception and Artist Talk
Tuesday, August 13, 5 – 6 PM

SOCO Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of The importance of elsewhere, a solo exhibition by artist Isabelle Young featuring ten c-type photographs. The gallery will host a public opening reception and artist talk on Tuesday, August 13th from 5 - 6 PM. This will be the artist’s first exhibition with the gallery and first solo exhibition of work in the United States.

Isabelle Young is a British artist based in London, but her work is about somewhere else, elsewhere, as the title of the exhibition denotes. Born and raised in London, the artist grew up with a strong tie to her Italian roots . Now, her time in Italy is vital to her artistic practice. She describes her time spent there as “urgent, and I return to a part of myself which I only find in Italy.” Young observes heightened curiosity in unfamiliar places. She frequently travels to  Italy but each visit feels as though it is anew.

It is not until she returns home to London that she can really unpack the new work she has created, adding “it gives me a new perspective which I might not immediately have until I'm out of context from the places I was photographing. A bit like writing, you need to lock it in a drawer for a bit then go back to it.”

The artist’s photographs focus on quiet moments where “architecture plays the lead, and I am drawn to its towns and cities, focusing on fragments. Classical details; modernity; industrial Italy and upright stones.” (Northern Italy, 2018) The work included in The importance of elsewhere spans from 2018 - 2023 and covers Milan, Venice, Rome, Ferrara, Turin, Bergamo, Crema, Modena and Brescia. Young’s photographs provide a targeted view of areas of these cities that one might not spend time with or may notice only in a passing moment.

Her close looking and traveler's eye often capture details and locations with traces of civilization. Her work sometimes includes shadows but rarely  figures, as seen in the key image for the exhibition, Fresco. The artist describes visiting Basilica San Marco, Venice after two years of being away and seeing the glass flood barrier for the first time. “I saw something unexpected - the glass wall moved like a series of cinematic frames, capturing the reflections of the queue which enveloped  it. The resulting photograph appeared fresco-like with the silhouettes filtered through the glass onto the pink marble.”

Young’s work is influenced by Italian Neorealism, and especially Italian directors Federico Fellini and Roberto Rossellini, with two works being named in reference to Rossellini’s film Roma città aperta. Akin to Neorealist films made after World War II, Young’s work portrays a documentary-like objectivity.

Her photographs underscore what is generic and ordinary, yet beautiful, especially to someone seeing it for the first time. With these everyday subjects comes a sense of mystery—Who last looked through this window or who may have sat in this spot centuries ago? Young’s carefully-considered compositions are elegant while simultaneously filled with captivating wonder.

Isabelle Young (B. 1989, London, UK)

Isabelle Young graduated from the Royal College of Art, London with an MA in Photography (2022). Her solo exhibition Isabelle Young: ‘In Camera’ at Galerie Fabian Lang, Switzerland (2022) focused on various architectural series, and the gallery recently presented her work at Felix Art Fair, Los Angeles, USA (2023). In June 2023,  Galerie Fabian Lang and Isabelle Young transformed the top floor of a Victorian building in Soho, London into a temporary exhibition space to present a solo exhibition of Young’s series Stills. In September 2023 the group exhibition ‘Painting with Light’ opened at the same location in London, which was curated by Isabelle Young with  Vortic Curated. Further exhibitions include Palazzo Monti: Transatlantico, Mana Contemporary, Jersey City, USA (2020); Van Gogh House, London, UK (2020); Galerie Norbert Arns, Cologne, Germany (2019). Collections include Credit Suisse Collection, Switzerland; Museo Casa Mollino, Turin, Italy; Katrin Bellinger Collection, London, UK; Simmons and Simmons, London, UK; and Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy. In 2024, Isabelle Young was granted the Pollock Krasner grant.