The Artist's Body Remembers: Art Etched In Ancestral Memory

Can art carry ancestral memory? Visual artist Gary Logan explores this possibility through biomorphic forms, mysterious natural worlds, and a deeply personal creative journey.

Artist Gary Logan

Every painting is a constellation of life—molecular and planetary—each shape, carefully crafted by Seattle-based artist Gary Logan, presses against and evolves the other. Born in Trinidad and Tobago but raised in the U.S. since he was five, Logan understands how the world can alter a person—their form, their trajectory, the way others perceive them. It’s this awareness that breathes life into every one of his artworks.

“Nature is definitely my muse,” said Logan who collects microscopic imagery from documentaries and scientific articles. “When I'm out on hikes, I'm usually with my cell phone or with a camera taking photos that I then bring back into my studio. The result ends up being these really bizarre like biomorphic forms and masses that are populating my canvases.”

Gary Logan Artwork

Through these ethereal and primordial forms—sculpted from foam, acrylic, natural materials, and ancient memory—Logan traverses the complex terrain of the human condition: identity, race, and sexuality.

“I also do a lot of experimenting with a wide range of different materials,” Logan said of his ability to create heavily textured surfaces, “from natural materials like paper pulp to more synthetic materials, like polyurethane foam. And I work with both of those, as well as with paint, to really push the idea of blurring the lines between two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional sculpture—basically, like relief sculptures.”