Born in 1961, Marvin Young is a lifelong resident of Chicago’s South Side. Young has been dedicated to art-making since he was a child and joined our South Side studio in 2024. He observes his environment intensely and draws constantly as an expression and record of people and places in his community as he’s experienced them over the decades. These portraits and various urban landscapes, both imagined and remembered, capture his hometown in a singular voice. Quite prolific, Young often produces several small scale drawings a day, or one large scale drawing over several days. He draws quick, yet detailed representations of figures (sometimes incorporating textile or background patterns) and neighborhood architecture, with subjects ranging from female police officers to taxis to the public housing project he once lived in on Cottage Grove.