Juan Logan

JUAN LOGAN

Belmont, NC

Painter and mixed-media artist Juan Logan is interested in unpacking his American experience. Born and raised in the South, his paintings and mixed-media work are an interrogation of race, place, and power. Focusing on concept and idea versus representation, abstraction has become his ideal language.

Logan uses old palettes, glitter, puzzle pieces and other found objects in his paintings. His iconic head form, a representation of his identity and the space where the “self” is defined, is an integral part of his visual language. These elements come together to unpack hierarchical relations and social stereotypes that impact communities, and the ways they see and celebrate themselves.

And We Went presents a portion of Logan’s beach paintings. Based on aerial maps of Black beaches. The mixed-media works locate spaces around the country that were created as a result of segregation and the need for Black communities to build safe, recreational spaces on their own. A document of sorts, these landscapes are an important part of our shared history, being centers for Black vacationers of varying classes and safe spaces for famous Black musicians to lodge and perform from the 1920s through the 1980s. Today many of these locations no longer exist as Black sanctuaries. Located on prime real estate, many of the beaches have been systematically isolated, defunded, and sometimes usurped into gated or exclusive waterfront communities.

Works on view