Elisa Markes-Young, artist, was born at Gorlice, Poland in January 1965, daughter of Edward Markes, a doctor, and Renate, née Hadaschik. The family migrated to Germany in 1981.
Markes-Young is largely self-taught, utilising and expanding on techniques learnt as a child from both her mother and in school. She later studied languages at the University of Cologne.
She met the artist Christopher Young in 1995 while on holiday in New Zealand. Shortly after Christopher moved to Germany, they married in 1996. She began exploring various mediums including pottery, illustration and photography.
Together the couple moved to Western Australia in 2002. They live and work from Margaret River. Focussing full-time on her practice, Elisa began exploring textiles as a medium.
The Strange Quiet of Things Misplaced #24 exemplifies Markes-Young’s ongoing enquiry into identity and the unreliability of our memories:
“Memory is a mystery. We imagine it as being some sort of a cupboard where things are stored and pulled out when needed. But sometimes things are misplaced and it’s only then, when our memory fails us that we brood over its nature. We ask ourselves how could we forget…?” (Elisa Markes-Young, 2011)
A complex repeating pattern degrades as it moves across the surface of the work. New patterns evolve, highlighting the malleability of memory.
Markes-Young has won multiple Western Australian art awards including the inaugural Mid West Art Prize 2011 with her work The Strange Quiet of Things Misplaced #24.
Markes-Young’s work was selected for the 18th Tamworth Fibre Textile Biennial (2008-2010) as well as the 1st Tamworth Textile Triennial (2011-2013). Both of these survey exhibitions toured Australia extensively.
Her work was also published in Mary Schoeser’s Textiles: The Art of Mankind (Thames & Hudson) in 2012.
Elisa Markes-Young’s work is represented in Royal Perth Hospital Art Collection, Tamworth Regional Gallery Art Collection, Wangaratta Art Gallery Collection, various Western Australian Council collections as well as private collections.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2014
- Last updated:
- 2019
