Zachari Logan

Interview by
Adam Baran
Photography by
Karla Griffin
01/03

ARTIST WITH BIG PENIS RECENTLY HAD HERNIA SURGERY

Zachari Logan lives in Canada where he makes intricate drawings and paintings of himself in the nude or wearing bulging underwear. His magnificent foreskin is always prominently featured. Zachari has been getting more and more attention lately for his drawings, so I emailed with him to find out more about his process.

Adam: So who is the guy in the picture with the long hair and long foreskin? Is that you?
Zachari: Yes it is me, for the past 2 and a half years I’ve been using myself exclusively as subject for my drawings and paintings exploring historical and contemporary masculine archetypes, using themes of narcissism, bravado and heroism jusxtaposed with the mudane/everyday. Gulliver (below) is from an older series of drawings.
Artists always say that they are ‘exploring’ things – do you feel like you have come to any conclusions yet from the exploration? Does that make sense?
Well it is hard to express in words what a painting/ drawing does. A visual art object, created to exist autonomously from language is hard to speak or write about, it is an elusive thing, it isn’t simply about one aspect or theme (if it is worth looking at) it is an object of intellectual “exploration”… that is in my opinion why artists use words like ‘explore’ and ‘this references something’ etc…
Well yes, I do understand that, but what about the narcissistic aspect of the paintings?
Most of my influences are of art-historical periods and painters. I pick freely from Neoclassical and Baroque styles, and re-create these visual references on a contemporary stage where I critique masculine accepted archetypes throughout history, queering them in the process. The paintings and drawings that feature me as the subject simply play with historical and contemporary stereotypes of all men, not just gay men, one being narcissism- in an effort to return the male gaze, which is usually reserved for the female figure. These paintings and drawings are about self-desire as well as being about men desiring other men.
Do you get turned on by yourself when you are drawing or painting these self-portraits?
No I don’t get turned on by my own image. I find that these drawings and paintings are much less about my own sexual preferences- they are about me in the world, about my body, but not explicitly so.
You are massively hot though. Do you get laid all the time with different guys or do you have a steady boyfriend?
I am married to a really beautiful man, for 7 years now and it is a monogomous relationship.
What’s his name?
Ned.
I saw a picture of you on MySpace with a tattoo gun drawing on an apple. What’s that about?
I was apprenticing to be a tattoo artist last spring, but I had to stop because at the time I was also completing a masters degree. I would love to tattoo some day though.
Is that how you train – on fruit?
Some start with fruit, and as they get more confident move to human flesh… it really gives one a false sense of security. Others work with pig flesh first but the guy I was apprenticing under got me to work with fruit.
What do you do now?
I work in a stockroom, how butch huh? But I haven’t been doing too much because I recently had hernia surgery!
Fuck! I also saw on your MySpace that you like horror movies.
I love horror movies. My favorite movie of all time is The Shining. I find as a genre alot of horror movies have a really beautiful sensitivity to visual detail. I love the visual dichotomy of beauty/aesthetics and horror that is so historically ingrained (in me anyhow) because of my catholic upbringing. All those beautiful and highly erotic bodies of saints and Christ figures with busted bones and impaled bodies- but somehow they all seemed unaffected physically and mentally. There was this morbid mixing of torture, sexuality and beauty. I am definitely no longer a Catholic- I’m an athiest in fact, but Catholocism certainly left me with lots of interesting subjectmatter to explore.
This is the Butt Blog, so I should ask if you have any sex stories you’d like to share.
Well, this isn’t really a sex story, but my first real crush was on Bruce Willis in the movie ‘Mortal Thoughts’ the movie that brought the world ‘Rumor Willis’… it was after that movie that Demi Moore and Bruce Willis got together and procreated… and Bruce played a white trash wife-beater… weird?
That is weird only because it is the second mention on this blog in a week of Bruce Willis as a figure in someone’s early childhood knowledge of sexuality. Do you ever make your cock bigger in the pictures?
That is the most frequently asked question about my paintings and drawings – whether anything has been ‘enhanced’. I give a different answer every time… I’d rather the wonder of paint and graphite tell the story.

Published on 04 December 2008