Rani Young
Rani Young (pronounced RAH-nee) is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary artist—painter, illustrator, sculptor, installation artist, filmmaker, singer, actor, lyricist, and writer—who brings her professional skills as a graphic designer, motion graphics artist, and video editor into her art practice.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Born as a twin on Halloween, I have always been drawn to the idea of becoming a character as well as finding and expressing my own unique identity. I am a multidisciplinary artist and I work within whatever medium suits my needs in the moment, whether drawing, painting, music, writing, sculpture, or space design. I live and work in my art studio surrounded by the characters and scenes that originate in my mind and spill out onto my canvases, as if I am living within a book or a film, and I often utilize self-portraiture as a way of changing costume and working out identity. I grew up painting, drawing, singing to myself, and reading Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie. I loved to feel like I was unraveling some mystery, and I still feel like I am doing just that when I'm figuring out how to depict something on canvas or create an effect I want using a technology tool. I work professionally as a graphic designer and a motion graphics/video artist, and my graphic sensibilities and interest in motion factor into my paintings. And, to an equal degree, my paintings have always felt like film stills. I've recently gotten into filmmaking and acting, and now worlds are truly colliding.