Michaela Younge

Michaela Younge is a South African artist currently based in Cape Town. She obtained a degree in fine arts with distinction from the Michaelis School of Fine Art in 2015.

In 2022, Younge won the "tomorrows/today" award for her solo exhibition within the eponymous section — under the curation of Mariella Franzoni — at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair; she was also a finalist for the Norval Sovereign African Art Prize in 2023.

Her first solo exhibition, titled "nothing bad," took place in 2019 at the Smith Gallery in Cape Town, followed by "it's low tide and i'm scraping the rocks" at the African Contemporary Art Fair 1-54 in London in 2020. She subsequently exhibited "gossip from the palace" (2021) and "a tight squeeze" (2024) with the SMAC Gallery, while participating in group exhibitions, both local and international.

Michaela Younge's works are featured in several collections, including the Pérez Collection (Miami, United States), the Sovereign Art Collection (Hong Kong), the Leridon Collection (Paris, France), and the X Museum collection (Beijing, China).

Michaela Younge's compositions are an accumulation of references and scenes that the artist gathers from various sources: long lists of overheard phrases, headlines, advertising slogans, tabloids, medieval manuscripts, television serials, fairy tales…

From this apparent chaos, she creates theatrical series of settings — small scenes on which each of her characters plays a role. small and large dramas unfold in all corners of her works.

No single narrative structures Younge's scenes; each protagonist seems, on the contrary, absorbed in themselves, isolated from others even though they are all gathered in the same space. the details are eccentric, imbued with humor, and often marked by violence and sex.

At the heart of these feverish dreams fashioned from merino wool, historical allusions and references to contemporary world culture mingle to create splendid tapestries where even the most singular associations take on all their meaning and become the strange theater of a small world of fabric.