Sitting in his Melbourne home in 2008, contemporary Australian artist John Young Zerunge AM was surprised by a phone call from 10Chancery Lane Gallery, Hong Kong, informing him that the curatorial team from M+, Hong Kong’s premier new Museum, yet to be built, had arrived unexpectedly to purchase almost the full suite of Young’s work. 1967 Dispersion, as the exhibition was titled, dealt with the year of Young’s departure from Hong Kong as he travelled to Australia.

Since then, Young, now Australia’s most senior Asian artist, has spent a four-decade career as a painter and installation artist investigating the condition and experience of bi-culturalism. These investigations have generated major exhibitions globally, including representing Australia at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and major travelling exhibitions around Asia. Young has permanent installations in institutions spanning Germany and Japan, the National Library in Canberra, and the Grand Hyatt in Hong Kong. Throughout it all, he is devoted to multicultural advocacy as an artist towards regional development, working closely with Australian institutions to develop an infrastructure and public for Asian art in Australia. He was instrumental in establishing the 4A Centre for Asian Art, Sydney in 1995 and over the last decade has delivered the first visual history of the Chinese in Australia since 1840.

Young’s efforts have been widely acclaimed. In 2021, he was featured in the culminating chapter of art historian John Clark’s magisterial opus The Asian Modern (2021), and in 2020, conferred to the Order of Australia (AM) in recognition of his contributions to Australian visual art.

John Young’s works were recenty on show at Bunjil Place Gallery, Victoria, in the survey exhibition Diaspora, Psyche and The Shiva Paintings at Philip Bacon Galleries, Brisbane.