The Artist Portrait Series March 3rd - 31st

Yeyo Arts Collective warmly welcomes photographer Fern Logan to Gya community Gallery for the month of March.

Logan admits to a self-conciousness in her work that kept her early subject matter restricted primarily to landscape scenes. Her work as a documentary photographer, doing photojournalism throughout the United States, the Caribbean, and India, and as a graphic designer had reinforced this emphasis. In 1983, however, Logan resolved to put the human figure into her repertoire and created the photodocumentary “The Artist Portrait Series,” in which she photographed prominent black artists such as Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, and Romare Bearden. She began the series because of her philosophy of art as an educational tool and through a desire “to document the careers of highly accomplished black visual artists.” It was this work which was awarded a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts in 1985 and was published in a book by Southern Illinois University Press in 2001 with a grant from the Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation. This work was presented in a solo exhibition in Amsterdam, Holland in March of 2002 at the International Institute for Social History. Always present in Logan’s photographs is an aesthetic of beauty, drama, and of mood. In 2001 Southern Illinois University Press published The Artist Portrait Series. The book features environmental portraits of 60 African American Artists, many of whom have subsequently passed away.

Logan’s work has been exhibited at The Smithsonian Institution, Just Above Midtown Gallery, The Studeo Museum in Harlem, Kenkeleba Gallery, Cinque Gallery, the National Urban League Gallery 62, the Clocktower, and the Jamaica Arts Center, among others. The Harlem State Office Building, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Bellevue Hospital Center, N.Y. City, have Logan’s work in their permanent collections.

During the closing reception, on Friday, March 25^th, Logan will give a lecture on the Artist Portrait Series and books will be available for purchase.

Logan recently opened a gallery in Carbondale, Illinois which provides exhibiting opportunities and photographic workshops to the Southern Illinois community. For more information on Fern Fair Gallery, visit: www.fernfair.com