Purvis Young was born in 1943 in the Liberty City section of Miami, FL.  He now resides in the Overtown section of Miami.  Race riots and Viet Nam protests in Miami in the late 1960s and early 1970s influenced Young and his art, as did an early stint behind bars.  It was while in prison that Young began to paint.  His first public art in the early 1970s was the Goodbread Alley project, which consisted of hundreds of paintings hung on boarded up buildings in Overton, his Miami neighborhood which had been destroyed when an interstate highway was routed through the community.  His energy and anger had found an outlet. Young paints on the pages of books, plywood, pieces of linoleum and other discarded objects.  For example, “Face on Desk Pad,” is painted on a discarded desk pad.  Young also incorporates scraps of carpet and other objects into his paintings.  Many of his paintings depict street scenes of his urban neighborhood, such as “People in the City” or religious otherworldly scenes, such as “Two Angels and a Saint.” Young says, “I was put on earth to paint, not to live – that’s what God put me here for.  I never hardly say too much to my neighbors.  I just keep my mouth shut.  I don’t let people get close to me.  I’m not aggressive.  God didn’t put me on earth to say too much.  God put me here to paint.”