Show Preview | Logan Maxwell Hagege

Jackson, WY
Trailside Galleries, September 1-14

Logan Maxwell Hagege, Reconnected, oil, 50 x 40.

This story was featured in the September 2014 issue of Southwest Art magazine. Get the Southwest Art September 2014 print issue or digital download now–then subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss another story!

Light has the power not only to  illuminate, but also to transform. Light changes perspectives and perceptions, underscoring the ever-changing, ever-flowing passage of time. It is this power that spurs Logan Maxwell Hagege to engage light as both device and character in his paintings, as a tangible force that at once catalyzes and embodies change. This month Trailside Galleries mounts Changing Light, its first exhibition exclusively devoted to Hagege’s work. The show explores the artist’s perpetual, intense desire to capture the effects of light and the patterns it creates as it moves across objects, particularly those in open desert spaces.

Changing Light runs from September 1 through 14 and includes approximately 15 new oil paintings by Hagege in a range of sizes, all featuring his shrewdly stylized vision of the American Southwest. Formal landscapes, as well as thoughtful portraits of Native American and cowboy figures ensconced in their surroundings, populate the collection, which represents a cohesive sampling of Hagege’s oeuvre. The gallery hosts a reception for the artist on Saturday, September 13, from 4 to 7 p.m. Trailside Galleries managing partner Maryvonne Leshe notes, “We are absolutely thrilled to be hosting our first one-man show for Logan, particularly during the week of the Fall Arts Festival in Jackson, which brings in so many collectors and fine-art enthusiasts. Logan has come through with a fantastic body of work  for this event, and collectors will not be disappointed.”

Inspired by painters throughout the canon, from Rembrandt to O’Keeffe to Rothko, Hagege melds the elegance and charm of traditional portraiture and landscape painting with the abstraction and spatial acuity of modernism. An austere yet robust style typifies Hagege’s approach, wherein he distills scenes down to their most elemental, then employs natural light to build layers and create unity among the visual planes. Such extraordinary illumination promotes harmony between figure and surroundings as well, as if each is one with the landscape, simultaneously moving and evolving through time.

“What I find most thrilling of all is that Logan’s paintings, infused with bold, striking color and angular images, are resonating across many collector platforms, from the more contemporary-minded art buyer to the diehard traditional western art collector,” says Leshe. “Now that is not an easy thing to do, and I think it sets him in a class of his own and speaks volumes about his artistic vision as he moves forward with his career.”

Hagege is a careful and deliberate painter, and each mark clearly establishes his purpose. He has built a relationship with the land and its people over the past decade, and it is important for him to get to know those he paints. (He has a cache of models who regularly appear in his work.) “I want people to know who I am as an artist,” he remarks. Indeed, Hagege’s creative identity and intent are apparent in his work, both visually and spiritually. —Elizabeth L. Delaney

contact information
307.733.3186
 www.trailsidegalleries.com

Featured in the September 2014 issue of Southwest Art magazine–click below to purchase:
Southwest Art September 2014 print issue or digital download Or subscribe to Southwest Art and never miss a story!