Gary Logan (b.1970): BLACK Exhibit

The paintings in this show, often incorporating sculptural materials of Mr. Logan’s own development, act as topographic metaphors, observations, and personal experiences regarding race, sexuality, our environment, and the human condition. His fondness for scrolls found in Chinese, Japanese, and other Asian cultures, account for the near-uniform vertical configuration in his own work.

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.