Zachari Logan, “Stay The Fuck Inside No. 1, from Advice Series,” 2020
blue pencil on Mylar, 10” x 10” (courtesy Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
In 2008, Zachari Logan submitted images of his full-frontal, nude self-portraits to a French magazine that specializes in drawing. Logan had just completed his MFA at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and was ready to take on the world.
He can’t remember the name of the magazine, but he certainly remembers what happened after his drawings were published. Paris gallerist Jean Roch Dard saw Logan’s work in the magazine and offered the young artist an exhibition. The Myth of Pants opened in 2009. It was the kind of breakthrough coveted by every art school grad.
Soon after, Logan won a couple of international competitions that led to exhibitions of his neoclassical-influenced drawings in New York and Miami. A steady stream of New York shows followed. Remember, this was before most anyone in Canada, beyond his hometown of Saskatoon, had heard of Logan, let alone exhibited his work.
Now based in Regina, Logan has maintained a busy schedule of international exhibitions since graduation. Until now, that is. His calendar for 2020 was once filled with mainly solo international exhibitions in Italy, Bulgaria, Serbia, London, Atlanta and New York, along with domestic shows in Coquitlam, B.C., and Medicine Hat, Alta.
Italy and Atlanta went ahead. And then came the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of galleries around the world. So far, none of Logan’s scheduled exhibitions for 2020 have been cancelled – just postponed, turned virtual or offered to limited visitors.
Logan seems unfazed. “I have an ever shifting schedule, not in terms of production, but in exhibitions,” Logan says in a telephone interview.
Zachari Logan,“Beetles Mimic Necklace,” 2020
blue and red pencil on Mylar, 8” x 11” (courtesy of the artist)
These days, Logan is immersed in something new for him – text-based drawings related to COVID-19. One recent example is a drawing of Logan’s trademark luxuriant flowers with the jarring words STAY THE FUCK INSIDE almost obscuring the plants, just as the pandemic has obscured our view of most art these days.
Logan says he always wanted to be an artist. He started drawing when he was five. Throughout his childhood, his parents and teachers frequently complimented him on his art. He needed positive reinforcement because of his difficulties in reading and mathematics due to dyslexia.
He struggled to meet the required academic standard to attend university. But once on campus, he blossomed, in large part because of the guidance of certain professors, particularly his main mentor, Alison Norlen, an accomplished artist herself.
Zachari Logan, “Wildman Conjures a Black Hole,” 2020
blue and red pencil on Mylar, 7” x 7.5” (courtesy of the artist)
Then came the breakthrough Paris show and a globe-trotting career that has seen his self-portraits evolve into luscious botanicals, sometimes enveloping male figures. The floral drawings range from small, framed plant portraits to long, colourful tapestries of tangled gardens.
And there are now ceramics, including Fountain 1, a white, living sculpture that, with each showing, is adorned with yet more ceramic flowers. The whiteness of Fountain 1 has the appearance of a sculpture carved from human bones.
“When I come at anything, the main catalyst is going to be my body,” says Logan.
He sees no separation between the human body and the surrounding landscape. That intense view underpins his oeuvre.
“We’re not elevated creatures,” he says. “What is happening with COVID is human encroachment on places that humans don’t need to be and interacting with species we have not interacted with before.”
Zachari Logan, “Blood Cells, from Pool Series (after Mary Delany),” 2017
pastel on black paper, 32” x 90” (courtesy Paul Petro Contemporary Art, Toronto)
The gay-positive and ecological politics of Logan’s work these days are enveloped in Baroque aesthetics. A recent National Gallery of Canada online article described Logan’s art as “sumptuous and seductive.” In 2016, the gallery purchased his Eunuch Tapestry 5, which stretches over eight consecutive panels of paper, each almost two yards high and one yard wide. The gallery has not yet publicly displayed the monumental work of lush flora and fauna.
Many major public galleries in Canada have purchased pieces of Logan’s art, but he is yet to have a solo exhibition at any of them. However, a show, likely next year, is being planned at the Remai Modern in Saskatoon.
It took five years after Logan’s Paris debut for Canadian commercial galleries to start embracing him with important solo shows. First came Paul Petro Contemporary Art in Toronto and then the Slate Fine Art Gallery in Regina, which became his main dealer in Western Canada. Solo shows have been held over the years in Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and Vernon, B.C.
“I had far more exposure outside of Canada for quite a bit of time before I was showing in Canada in any degree,” says Logan.
Zachari Logan, “Fantasy Flower No. 2, after Mary Delany,” 2020
hand-built, hand painted ceramic, paper, pastel and human hair, 12 ”x 5” x 2” (courtesy of the artist
His next domestic show is at the Esplanade, a public art gallery in Medicine Hat, Alta. It is set to open this fall, with restricted attendance, and will feature a combination of drawings and ceramics. Logan’s Fantasy Flower No. 2, after Mary Delany, completed during a recent residency at Medalta in Medicine Hat, will be featured in the show.
After that, his international shows will continue. Logan will first fly to Bulgaria, where an ecologically-themed exhibition and residency at the Sofia gallery Little Bird Place will open in September, with only two masked and gloved visitors allowed at one time. The show will include his new work, Beetles Mimic Necklace.
Catalogue for “The Shadow Of The Sun: Ross Bleckner & Zachari Logan,” now postponed until 2021. (courtesy of the artist and Barr Gilmore)
A two-person show with New York artist Ross Bleckner has been postponed until next April at the Wave Hill Botanical Gardens and Museum in the Bronx. A catalogue, published in an edition of 50, will feature a collaborative etching by Logan and Bleckner. The show will feature Logan’s 2017 work, Blood Cells, from Pool Series (after Mary Delany).
A virtual solo exhibition is set to open in September at New Art Projects in London, with a physical showing later. Logan’s 2020 work Wildman Conjures a Black Hole is included in that show. Logan is also curating a simultaneous drawing show there that includes nine Canadian artists.
As well, he will participate in forthcoming group shows in Coquitlam and Belgrade, Serbia.
The pandemic, it seems, is just giving Logan some breathing space before his international marathon continues. ■
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