First year Honors student and product design major Ezra Young is already making his mark on campus after a successful gallery debut in December at Homewoods Studio. Young’s show featured a collection of original works that highlight his years of experience in the graffiti arts.
While Young initially considered majoring in art, he ultimately chose product design for its versatility. Rather than viewing art and design as separate disciplines, he intentionally integrates his artistic process into his approach with product design.
“That's the awesome thing about product design, its not too niche,“ he said. “I wanted to cross my interests and learn things I might not necessarily have learned anywhere else.”
Young began developing his artistic voice through drawings with graphite, colored pencils, and oil pastels, He was first introduced to the medium of spray painting in 2020 when SPRAYFiNGER visited his school. SPRAYFiNGER is a “graffiti arts community dedicated to elevating the art and culture of graffiti through educational programs and collaborations.” Young has continued working with them ever since.
“Spray paint - there’s nothing else like it,” he said. “It’s in the nature of graffiti to be fast. It allows for speed, it allows for scale.”
He recently worked with the large scale format with the completion of a mural at Sola Salons, a 400 square foot piece that took nearly 20 hours to complete.
“Part of the appeals of graffiti is that it’s big,” he said. “You can paint whatever you want as big as you want. There’s something really special about it.”
But Young also appreciates the details of smaller art, especially after compiling his pieces for his gallery debut, which represented both a a milestone and a starting point. He hopes to further develop his artistic practice while expanding his understanding of how art and product design intersect.
“Product design is a great major because it teaches you not only design process which is useful for everything, but it’s also like - products are everything,” he said. “I like the specified freedom that it gives you. You can be specifically working on products, but you have the freedom of choosing whatever product you want to.”
Young’s next gallery exhibition will be on Friday, February 6 at the Northeast Sculpture Gallery Factory.
View Ezra Young’s work on his Instagram @love.arez and @ezrayoung_.