Logan Maxwell Hagege (US) "Cactus Land" 2024, oil on linen, 51 x 41 cm

Logan Maxwell Hagage (US)
Born 1980
Lives and works in Ojai, California

Logan Maxwell Hagege is an Ojai, CA based contemporary artist with modern visions of the west. The paintings of Hagege exhibit all the hallmarks of his classical art training from an academy in Southern California, a modern-day atelier, in which students refined their skills by drawing and painting live models every day for years.

Yet, it is in the artist’s departures from strict realism where his work now draws its strength and where his vision is fed by a heady mix of nature and imagination. A power born of observation, recollection and creative inspiration imbue Hagege images of the American Southwest. He is arguably one of the most adept artistic narrators telling and re-telling a modern story of a hauntingly beautiful desert land.

Hagege’s mature style, which he terms “stylized realism,” has made him a master of geometric design where angles and edges are softened by the curve of billowing clouds. His signature clouds often mimic the shapes of the blanketed figures in the foreground, creating visual roadmaps for the viewers, further adding to the design, and narrative of each composition.

An inventive yet disciplined artist, Hagege is an accomplished musician, former competitive surfer, a husband and a father. Today, Hagege travels extensively to cultivate inspiration and to deepen his relationship with his subjects and with the culture of the land. He produces field studies on location near a home in remote northern Arizona where the landscape – in the form of red cliffs, towering clouds and cerulean sky – is among his guides. Those works inform the pieces he later creates in his studio in Ojai, California.

Artist Statement, Ojai CA, 2024