statement

Through large-scale drawing and installation practices, I have evolved a visual language that explores the intersections between masculinity, identity, memory and place. Previous work related to my current practice involved the investigation of my body as singular site of exploration. In recent work, my body remains a catalyst, but no longer the sole focus. Employing a strategy of visual quotation, mined from place and experience, I re-wild myself as a queer embodiment of nature. This narrative shift engages figuration, empirical explorations of landscape and overlapping art-historic motifs. Drawing, for me, is a basic, continuous response to surroundings, an immediate way to explore the subjective. It always involves the body, as it is a physical act. This is why everyone can relate to drawing in some way, we all have an experience with it, even if it is only minutely, whether automatic, frenzied, observational or totally calculated.

In the 'Eunuch Tapestry Series', a suite of mural-scaled pastel drawings, referencing the famous Flemish 'Unicorn Tapestries', species of plant and animal life collected from various places and times, become central themes in the creation of a metaphoric language surrounding memory and place. Amalgamated in a single space, these observational drawings become magical, as many of the species are mixed at will, and placed in biologically incorrect manifestations, often at the edges of a ditch, a liminal space. As floral tapestry flattens landscape through constant patterning, these drawings work to evoke the weight of identity through a constant re-working of personal expedition, while the hunt for an elusive creature becomes self-reflexive, a mindscape that is both recessive and flat.

In the 'Natural Drag Series' I explore outsider characters from historical sources, often European constructs, such as the 'Wild Man', 'Green Man' or 'Leshy' (an Eastern European counterpart). Queering these characters as silhouetted amalgamations of plant and animal life, I adorn my body flamboyantly in a sort of camouflage-drag. Referencing Northern Renaissance artists such as Durer, Brueghel and Bosch as well as the surrealistic portraits of Arcimboldo, my aim is to extend these portraits to the dramatic.

bio

born: 1980, Saskatoon, Canada

education

University of Saskatchewan, BFA, 2004
University of Saskatchewan, MFA, 2008

selected awards/honors

Research, Creation Project Grant. Canada Council of the Arts (2013-14)
Independent Artist Grant. Saskatchewan Arts Board (2012-13)
Finalist, Fundació de les Arts. Figurative Painting Competition. Barcelona, Spain.
Recipient, MFA-Now, International Painting Competition. New York, New York.

selected publications

Forthcoming: INDA 9: International Survey of Contemporary Drawing. Manifest Gallery Press.  Manifest Gallery. Cincinnati, Ohio. (2014)
"Zachari Logan: Fugitive Garden" by JJ Kegan McFadden. C Magazine. Issue 121, 2014.
Aesthetica Creative Works: International Survey 2012. Aesthetica Magazine, London, England.
Domestic Queens Project, Exhibition Catalogue. Commentary by Mark Clintberg. Galerie FOFA, Concordia University Press, 2011.

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Fugitive Garden, Illingworth-Kerr Gallery. Curated by Wayne Baerwaldt. Calgary Alberta, Canada, 2013.
Wilderness Tips, Schleifmuhlgasse 12-14, Vienna, Austria, 2012.
Trauma & Other Stories, Daniel Cooney Fine Art, New York, New York, 2011-12.
Disappearances, Galerie Jean Roch Dard, Paris, France, 2011-12.

selected group shows

Faceless (touring) Curated by Bogomir Doringer. Museums Quartier, freiraum quartier21 Internationa, Vienna, Austria/ Mediamadik Fabriek, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 2013-14
New Work, Western-Project, Los Angeles, California, 2013
Men Working: The Contemporary Collection of Allen Thomas Jr. Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina, 2013-14.
Untitled Male id, Angus-Hughes Gallery. Curated by William Angus-Hughes. London, England