The Moon Swept Down

Paul Petro Contemporary Art is pleased to present new work by Zachari Logan. From Zachari:

The title of this exhibition, The Moon Swept Down, a line taken from Joni Mitchell's song, For the Roses, sets a stage where the cloak of moonlight contours ever-shifting notions of identity, place and the nature of memory. This exhibition includes new monumental and intimate drawings, paintings, print work and installation that centre around figuration and landscape. These works continue my long-standing exploration of selfhood and queerness through notions of interconnection.

The title of the largest work in this exhibition, Diana, refers to Diana, the Greek goddess of the hunt as well as the moon. I portray her as a self-representation within a vast landscape, placing viewers in a vantage point deep in lakeside water. A similar vantage as Actaeon, a young hunter who unwittingly stumbles across her, witnessing her bathing without invitation. For his voyeurism, Diana curses him, transforming him into a deer and his own hunting dogs tear him apart. My Diana is perhaps less menacing, not pictured here bathing- but back on land, (maybe aware of visitors), but from the shore where we see her, we the viewers are emersed, we are perhaps the bathers.

As in past works of mine that engage self-portraiture, my body, it’s visage becomes an embodiment of nature, a character that bridges a gap between contemporary queer representation and art historical languages that have attempted to erase or effectively exclude the reality of queerness in nature and thus society. The landscape foliage here is entirely generated by recollection of botanical forms. Waterweeds, trees, rock and grasses here are all composite forms that have been drawn through a process of reminiscence. Drawn entirely from memory of past experiences either drawing from life, image or a combination of both. The landscape is entirely fictive and also entirely authentic, as it comes from my experience of nature, of land and of self. The drawing in it’s totality becomes self, both the landscape and the figure. The water is the South Saskatchewan, the Danube, Lake Ontario and Wascana Lake. Like in most works in this exhibition, the moon is present, but here only as light source- and a subtle reflection on the waters edge.