Isabelle Young
How would you describe your work in three words?
Autobiographical, painterly, unhurried.
What got you into the arts? How did you become an artist?
It began as a coping mechanism and has remained so throughout my life. All throughout Sixth Form I hid myself away in the darkroom with its red light and running water, lifting my prints from the water and taking them into the light. Camden School for Girls shaped my entire life - the school had to kick me out most evenings before locking up. My parents and teachers armed me with art history which became a constant lifeline. The Photographers’ Gallery’s original location on Great Newport Street was also an early inspiration, their iconic 2006 exhibition Antonioni’s Blow-Up: London, 1966 included Don McCullin’s original photographs used in the film and sparked my approach to taking photographs which appear like cinematic stills.
You studied English literature before moving into photography. When did you discover that photography is your preferred medium, and what does it allow that the other disciplines couldn't?
It’s always been photography. Life has not been without its challenges but when I hold up to my eye the same camera I have been using for over 20 years I return to a place that is stable and safe. It’s an interior place that I seek out in the world. On the beach in Rimini my dad was the first to point out that I stop breathing when lining up a shot. My brow often hurts from holding one eye shut and squinting through the viewfinder (every photo is followed by a deep sigh).
However I have made a few films as what I lament about photography is the lack of sound. My films are mostly sequences of stills from my photographs combined with the soundtrack of a place. Cinema is one of my biggest influences, and my films have fed back into the photographs I take. From studying literature - the novel and poetry in particular - I often think of myself as an unreliable narrator who is omnipresent within the world I have created.
What is the technical process behind your work and how does it influence your aesthetic?
All my work is shot on film - a combination of the same 35mm camera and, in more recent years, a medium format 6x9 camera. I am drawn to analogue photography due to its privacy. The latent image I have just taken is not linked to a Cloud or a Drive and cannot be seen by anyone, including myself. When I fire the shutter, I understand what - in a split second - has just taken place inside, and the choreography between mirrors that align within the camera’s metal shell. The process of creation is so quick, the negative exposed in milliseconds, followed by the slowness of getting to know the work.
Your work rarely includes figures, concentrating instead on architecture and fragments of cities. How do you select your subjects?
A desire for control defines my subjects. Architecture has always been my leading subject partly because, unlike a person, it has a limited say in how I choose to see it. It instils in me a constant desire to subvert it, find another path, another approach, and take a photograph that belongs to me.
You describe your time in Venice as "urgent," returning to a part of yourself you only find there. How do you distinguish between being a traveller, a documentarian, and something else entirely when you're working in those spaces?
I find my artistic space outside of the studio, by being alone in a new city with the cameras to create a space that belongs to photography. It’s a combination of months of pre-planning locations and pre-ordained luck as the hunt begins. I never have my camera with me unless I’ve decided to be in a mood to notice.
What do you hope to capture and convey through your work?
Every photograph is full of hope - hope that I made the right decision, set the correct light settings and only fired the shutter when I was ready. I love the delay between making my work in the darkness and seeing it for the first time, often weeks later (an exposed roll of film is my most precious possession). So perhaps what I hope to capture and convey in every photograph is an attempt. Not knowing what might happen in camera is vital and I approach my photographs as though setting the scene before something happens, never the act itself. I often think back to Federico Fellini’s description of his process: “Before I make a film, there's nothing I can say about it because, quite sincerely, I don't know. The filmmaker knows the least of anyone about it. What he's created should speak for itself.”
Who are the artists that have inspired you most?
Eugène Atget (first and foremost), Alice Neel, Alfred Stieglitz, Piero della Francesca, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Rauschenberg, Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Frank O’Hara and Chantal Joffe.
Do you collect art from other artists? How important is it for you to live with art?
Vital and the pieces I live with are a mixture of gifts from artists but mostly inconsequential pieces inherited from family, including a small watercolour of Turin’s Royal Palace and a beautiful wooden propeller bought by my dad in his flying days. I keep two drawings very close - a self-portrait drawn for me by Ishbel Myerscough depicting her and Chantal Joffe with arms raised, and a drawing by Celia Paul which she gave to me on my birthday while in LA together. Carrying these objects through various homes is a great comfort.
Any projects in the pipeline?
In June I am very excited to be undertaking a residency at Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz to document their various palazzi across the city. My work is also currently on view in RE:VISION East Wing Biennale at The Courtauld Institute of Art until Summer 2027.