Little Low Heavens

We are delighted to be showing Little Low Heavens - a series of ten new works by Brandon Logan at Bard, in partnership with Ingleby Gallery for this year's Edinburgh Art Festival.

Brandon Logan (b. 1996) is an Orcadian artist, based in Stromness. During his time as a student at Edinburgh College of Art he developed a distinctive process of abstract painting, gradually coating warps of string with layers of acrylic paint that, once dry, become self-supporting works that sit somewhere between painting, sculpture and tapestry.

Though resolutely abstract, Brandon’s practice is rooted in the rhythms and atmospheres of his surroundings. For him, Orkney is a place where time is both visible and deeply felt, experienced in the shifting weather and light, the layered history of the land and the cycles of life. The island holds echoes of those who came before: Neolithic tombs, Iron Age brochs, Viking settlements, and the scars of two world wars. These ghostly resonances shape his understanding of place and time.

The title of the show is taken from a line in the poem Spring by Gerard Manley Hopkins, in which the poet describes the eggs of a thrush as ‘little low heavens’. Brandon found this line poignant as an expression of colour beyond literal description; it captures an abstract intimacy that is similar to his own approach. We find Brandon’s work compelling for the moods he conjures - the apparent simplicity of the paintings belies the layers and depths within them.

The artist describes the early influence of the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness. The former home and studio of Orcadian artist Sylvia Wishart, the centre was founded in 1979 based around the private collection of St. Ives paintings and sculptures from Wishart’s close friend Margaret Gardiner. The old harbour building is divided into small spaces and the works are domestic in scale; you encounter the building and art together in a very human way.

This affinity with environment makes Bard a fitting context for Brandon’s presentation of Little Low Heavens. The warm, domestic mood of Bard’s interior with its textured, earth-pigmented walls, is a counterpoint to the sterility of a white cube gallery. Here, the paintings cast shadows that shift with the light. They become something different in dialogue with the atmosphere of the spaces.

We share the way Brandon feels about the grounding and elevating qualities of living with art at home, which chimes with our own feelings about craft and design at Bard. In the artist’s words: “I’ve always been drawn to the idea of art as something domestic to live with alongside life.”

Please contact us to receive a digital catalogue of Little Low Heavens.

Little Low Heavens is on show at Bard, in partnership with Ingleby Gallery for EAF25, from Thursday 7th August until Sunday 24th August. During this period, Bard will be open from 11am until 5pm from Wednesday to Sunday, and otherwise by appointment.