Past Exhibitions

Browse the chronological list of past exhibitions at the Saint Louis University Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCRA), or search for a specific exhibition. Click “View” for more information about an exhibition. If you need further information about an exhibition, please contact us.

Name

Gary Logan: Elements

Dates

March 19, 2019 to June 30, 2019

Description

Trinidadian-American artist Gary Logan explores humanity’s relationship with the Earth and its elements through dramatic lighting, atmospheric ambiguity, vivid colors, and rich textures. He finds visual and conceptual inspiration in two rich sources that utilize landscape as a means of exploring the human condition. Logan is drawn to the Taoist emphasis on observation and reverence of nature, as well as Taoist principles such as the harmonious interplay of universal opposites. And like Romantic painters of the nineteenth century, he paints to evoke a sense of the sublime, expressing mystery, grandeur, and raw emotion.

Describing his work as Neo-Romantic, Logan situates himself in a line of artists who utilize landscape painting to evoke powerful emotions, spirituality, signs of conflict, and the complexity of the human condition. He also uses landscape imagery as a means of navigating the complex terrain of human nature and identity. As an artist of Afro-Caribbean descent and as a gay man, various aspects of his racial and cultural heritage and his sexuality are regularly interwoven into his images. These aspects encompass fraught themes and psychological demons, but also embrace and celebrate Blackness, gay identity, survival, healing, and renewal.

Gary Logan was born on the island of Trinidad in 1970 and raised in the United States. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts in Painting from Boston University. During his time in Massachusetts, he also developed a career in education while initiating his artistic profession. He relocated to New York and New Jersey, working as an art educator in various public schools. Logan subsequently lived in São Paulo, Brazil, where he advanced his art career while exploring Brazil’s diverse landscape and culture. He currently resides in Miami, Florida, and devotes his time to painting, teaching, and directing a visual arts program at a school for the arts.

Along with individual and group exhibitions in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, São Paulo, and South Florida, his artwork has been highlighted in periodicals such as Bostonia magazine, and the literary journals Callaloo and AGNI. In 1999, he and poet Eric McHenry were awarded The Phillip Guston Prize for their artist collaboration featured in AGNI.

My work is about the Earth and its elements, as much as it is about us—the human element. | Gary Logan

above:
Installation view of Gary Logan: Elements at MOCRA, 2019. Photo by Kevin Lowder.

Related programming

A Conversation with Gary Logan

Related MOCRA Voices episodes

Watch A Conversation with Gary Logan

Show entries

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Exhibition
Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual January 28, 2024 to May 19, 2024 Open Hands: Crafting the Spiritual assembles the work of six intergenerational artists from across the country who use everyday materials, found objects, and elements of craft production to explore issues related to faith and spirituality, personal and cultural identity, and tradition and ...
Selections from the MOCRA Collection September 06, 2023 to December 17, 2023 Enjoy a look at some of the most popular works in the MOCRA collection, along with recent acquisitions and lesser known gems. In particular, we pay tribute to the late James Rosen (1933–2023). In a career spanning more than six decades, Rosen demonstrated a keen under...
Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado: Cuentos Nuevomexicanos March 19, 2023 to June 25, 2023 Engaging a Living Tradition Artists Vicente Telles and Brandon Maldonado are forging new links in the chain of the continuing story of the people of New Mexico. Telles is firmly rooted in the Santero tradition (the making of santos, or images of saints), w...
$Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE$ Jordan Eagles: VIRAL\VALUE October 26, 2022 to December 18, 2022 Medium and Message Jordan Eagles is the master of a most unlikely medium: blood. His signature preservation technique permanently retains the organic material’s natural colors, patterns, and textures. In recent years, he has produced works made with donated human bloo...
Lesley Dill: Dream World of the Forest August 24, 2022 to October 16, 2022 MOCRA is pleased to present three new collage-paintings by Lesley Dill, an American artist who works at the intersection of language and fine art in sculpture, printmaking, installation and performance, exploring the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche. Dill transforms the emotions of t...
This Road Is the Heart Opening: Selections from the MOCRA Collection August 24, 2022 to December 18, 2022 The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated harmful systemic inequities and our responsibility to name and respond to them. Simultaneously, we are recognizing the importance of attending to our own well-being in mind, body, and spirit, a holistic vision of human wellness that Ignatian spirituality refe...
Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections February 16, 2022 to May 22, 2022 Three museums and seven centuries of art Double Vision: Art from Jesuit University Collections speaks to the unique role of art in Jesuit teaching as an instrument for finding meaning in life through imagination, feelings and reflection. The exhibition features 28 works ...
Tom Kiefer: Pertenencias / Belongings September 03, 2021 to December 19, 2021 In July 2003, fine art photographer Tom Kiefer started working part-time as a janitor and groundskeeper at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility near Ajo, Arizona. In mid-2007, he was given permission to collect food confiscated from migrants and asylum seekers and donate it to...
Quiet Isn't Always Peace February 03, 2021 to May 20, 2021 People everywhere were captivated as Amanda Gorman delivered her poem The Hill We Climb on the steps of the Capitol on Inauguration Day. Her cascading cadences of imagery alluded to orators of the past but unequivocally asserted her own voice in addressing the present moment. A short phrase from...
Surface to Source February 05, 2020 to November 22, 2020 For his first show curated as Director of MOCRA, David Brinker delves into the MOCRA collection, bringing out works that haven’t been shown in a number of years and juxtaposing them with perennial favorites. The works from the collection are joined by several works on loan. Meanwhile, the remov...

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Past Exhibitions

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