Check out the magnificent artwork of talented Canadian artist Zachari Logan.
Zachari Logan is a 30 year old Canadian artist who uses his own body as subject exclusively. Logan engages personal narratives that question historic masculine tropes. Logan’s narratives, situated within Neo-classical, Renaissance and Baroque styles, utilize themes of male bravado, heroism and narcissism often found in historic genre paintings. With these various themes, Logan juxtaposes the mundane realities of contemporary life using common-place costuming and props. Logan is interested in creating self-anxious queer narratives which contextualize marginalized male identities within the canon of visual art.
Logan has written about his work in the following terms:
My work explores and critiques constructions of masculinity, queerness and marginalization in the contemporary world. In both my graphic work and my painting, I confront the notion that masculinity is homogenous and question heteronormative sexuality as the origin by which all other male sexual realities are judged. Recently my painting has become more literally autobiographical, in the sense that I am exploring my own image as subject matter. While I am still analyzing constructions of masculinity through the exploration of archetypal male identities, I am performing a sort of drag by impersonating these identities using a semblance of my own image and costuming.
The staged backdrops, which contain these performances both minimalistic and bordering on tableau, further reference the constructed nature of sexuality and identity. While my drawings continue the same types of exploration into masculinity with the use of constructed images and elaborate backdrops, they are more allegorical in nature. Visually, I am interested in Neo-Classical and Baroque spatial realms. In my work I mimic these styles referencing art-historical masculine portrayals, such as: male bravado, narcissism and heroism. I then undermine these very constructions by returning the instinctually heterosexist gaze with a self-anxious queer narrative.
Watch a video with a gallery of Artworks by Zachari Logan. (most of them show male nudity).
To know more about this brilliant artsit visit his website ZACHARI LOGAN
