Gary Logan: Surface

Surface is a series of sublime, topographic images alongside magnified, biological masses that make poignant statements on identity, reveal signs of human discord, and chronicle the destruction and consumption of the natural world. Gary Logan’s provocative series fluctuates between his reflections on the complexities of human nature and our currently imbalanced relationship with the Earth. His diversely haunting images aim to navigate the viewer towards various levels of reckoning, realization, and hopefully healing from the often destructive sides of human nature.

Superficially, his turbulent artwork vacillates between microscopic and macroscopic points of views while utilizing an array of both artificial and natural materials to create a variety of earthly textures and curious biomorphic forms. The experimental, mixed media surfaces in his work fracture, rupture, and buckle from tumultuous, underlying themes such as loss, human oppression, and environmental collapse. Many of these images were initially rendered from memory, observation, satellite images, and various scientific sources. As a result, each composition is laden with symbolism referencing the complexities of the human condition as well as our current state of environmental decline.

Whether creating plastic covered vistas or distressed leather exploding with cotton fibers, Logan’s heavily textured images are intended to be viewed both as romantically inspired and abstracted terrains as well as disturbing inner landscapes that evoke the sublime, confront past episodes of human oppression, and force us to contend with our currently discordant relationship with the Earth. Surface, particularly deconstructs, examines, and exposes the perilous tenets between patriarchy, human subjugation, and the detrimental consequences of unchecked consumption of nature. Logan aims to highlight the disturbing similarities and psycho-social consequences related to widespread human conflict and environmental destruction – as both have threatened and continue to jeopardize both our existence and that of natural life on this planet.

As an artist of Afro-Caribbean descent and as a gay man, Logan boldly intersects various aspects of his personage, racial heritage, and sexuality into his images. These aspects encompass fraught themes and psychological demons, but also embrace and celebrate Blackness, Gay identity, survival, and healing. Surface further blends identity and current scientific speculation on epigenetics, dark matter, climate change and the Anthropocene to reveal deeply disturbing views of humanity and our impact on the natural world. Hence, all of these motifs, from the personal to the panoramic, are rendered through a series of enigmatic landscapes and biomorphic images that appear to be teeming with curious, organic forms (reminiscent of atoms, molecules, cells, and viruses) that converge to create awe-inspiring compositions of damaged physical spaces and detailed views into disturbing sides of the human psyche. His compositions brazenly identify humanity as a viral plague on this planet, while simultaneously recognizing the profundity and resilience of life.

Logan’s art blurs the boundaries between minuscule signs of life and panoramic landscapes that consequently encourage the viewer to look closely at the disturbing similarities between human and environmental degradation. His work also entices the viewer to ponder the astounding evolutionary processes of life and powerful impact of natural forces on this planet; the same elements and forces that have forged our bodies and are written in our DNA. Surface deftly reveals the inequities and destruction done in the past (and which are still haunting the present), while also addressing the sublime beauty and diversity of nature. Ultimately, Logan’s work is a plea for awareness and healing, while he attempts to reimagine a more stable and balanced future for humanity and the natural world.