Madeline Young

Colourful, Textural Abstract Paintings exploring emotion, seasonal shifts and the landscape

Madeline Young is an Australian abstract artist based in Orange, NSW, on Wiradjuri Country. Her paintings emerge through an instinctive process, shaped by shifting emotions, seasonal change, and the character of the landscapes around her. She doesn’t begin with a fixed outcome; instead, each work evolves through gesture, colour, and response - an ongoing conversation between painter and canvas.
She works with brushes, palette knives, rollers, and other unconventional tools to build textures, patterns, and marks across the surface. Palettes often return to soft pinks, muted greens, and earthy browns, yet are interrupted by unexpected tones - deep blues, sudden warmths - that capture the unpredictability of memory and experience. These choices are not simply aesthetic but emotional, a record of moments felt as much as seen.
Madeline’s work is less about representing place than distilling its presence. Her abstractions invite viewers into a sensory space where time, landscape, and emotion overlap - echoes of drought, renewal, quiet afternoons, or charged, fleeting moments. In this way, her paintings become both deeply personal and universally resonant, offering a point of connection through colour and form.
Madeline holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Newcastle (2009) and has exhibited widely across Australia in solo and group exhibitions. Since 2014, she has also been the Curator and Director of The Corner Store Gallery, an independent art space in Orange dedicated to supporting and showcasing emerging contemporary artists from across the country. This ongoing curatorial work continues to inspire and inform her own practice, fostering dialogue, community, and connection within the arts.
Leave a Trace Spring Group Exhibition, October 2024.
An Ode to Pink Group Exhibition, November 22 - December 2 2023.
Flora Group Exhibition - September 14-24 2022.
BLOOD - Madeline Young & Magnus Young-Holborow, August 2022.
Q and A with Madeline Young 2020
Madeline Young This Place exhibition catalogue, December 2020.
Madeline Young, The Light is Different Here, April 2019.
Madeline Young and Ben Foster NATIVE, November 2016.