Juan Logan - Leisure Space

Juan Logan explores themes of pleasure and power in these vibrant images of landscapes. During the Jim Crow era, African Americans were barred from simple displays of relaxation and leisure on most public and private beaches, except in a service capacity. Leisure Space examines the lines of demarcation and lifestyles provided by bodies of water : separate beaches, separate opportunities, separate lives. Beaches symbolized power and prestige, while rural lakes and rivers served as reminders of the struggles of blacks and the brutal murder of many.

In Leisure Space, Logan grapples with how race and power have shaped, and continue to shape, the physical, cultural, and political landscapes of America. Titles like Chicken Bone Beach, Inkwell Beach, and Chowan Beach (all from 2008) map African-American waterside resorts of the Jim Crow Era, in relationship to areas reserved for whites

Others, like Dim Sum Trading (2008), visualize routes that support the consumption of other cultures. Logan's paintings picture the injection of race into space and leisure, as well as how racial differences are commercially exploited. Divisions in his works mark the boundaries that maintain social hierarchy.

About Juan Logan

Born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1946 and currently residing in Belmont, North Carolina, Juan Logan began painting, drawing and sculpting in 1960. Logan has shown his works widely nationally and internationally since 1969, both as an individual artist and in group exhibits. Recent exhibits include one-man shows at Spirit Square, the Jerald Melberg Gallery, and the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina and at St. John's Museum of Art in Wilmington, North Carolina. Group exhibits include the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the Cleveland Center for Contemporary Art in Ohio.

Logan's works are also included in numerous public and corporate collections, including the Nation Museum of African Art in Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles' Museum of African-American Art; Bell South in Atlanta, Georgia; Bank of America in Charlotte, North Carolina; and the Art in Embassies Program in Lome, Togo.