John Zerunge Young

In the 2020 Australia Day Honours Young was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for his "significant service to the visual arts, and as a role model".

Young's first solo exhibition was a one-minute show held in a hamlet in the fishing village of Rosroe, Connemara, on the west coast of Ireland. Since the mid-1980s, Young has produced three major cycles of work, the Silhouette Paintings (1986–89), the Polychrome Paintings (1989–93) and the Double Ground Paintings (1993–present), which explore the relationship between Euro-American models of culture and experience and other modes of visuality, being and the cultural object. More recently, Young has produced series of abstract paintings which deal with concerns around technology and the body: Naïve and Sentimental Paintings, The Day After Tomorrow and Spectrumfigures. Since 2008, Young’s projects have focussed on transcultural humanitarianism, culminating in the projects Bonhoeffer in Harlem (Berlin, 2009), Safety Zone (Melbourne, 2010; Brisbane 2011), and his investigations into the history of the Chinese diaspora in Australia since 1840, through projects Open Monument (Ballarat, 2013-15),1866: The Worlds of Lowe Kong Meng and Jong Ah Siug (Melbourne 2015), Modernity's End (Melbourne, 2016) and The Burrangong Affray (Sydney, 2018).

Young has been the subject of three survey exhibitions: Orient/Occident: John Young, 1978-2005 held at the TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria in 2005-2006; The Bridge and the Fruit Tree at ANU Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra in 2013, and recently The Lives of Celestials: John Young Zerunge at Town Hall Gallery, Boroondara, Melbourne in 2019. He was also critical in establishing in 1995 the Asian Australian Artists' Association (Gallery 4A), now the 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, a centre for the promotion of Asian philanthropy and the nurturing of Australasian artists and curators.

John Zerunge Young AM (born 1956) is a Hong Kong-born Australian artist.

Born in Hong Kong in 1956, John Young Zerunge moved to Australia in 1967 during China's Cultural Revolution. He studied Philosophy of Science and Aesthetics at the University of Sydney, then studied sculpture and painting at Sydney College of the Arts with postmodernist artist Imants Tillers. In 1981, he left Australia on pilgrimage to Europe; whilst there, he received the Power Foundation Scholarship from the University of Sydney, enabling him to live in London and Paris. Young was instrumental in Australia's postmodern turn.