Dear Life
Erin Long LoganathanJun 26 12:00pm — Aug 22, 2026 12:00pm
In Dear Life, Erin Long Loganathan embraces the ugly-pretty of being human while working intuitively across painting, ceramics, embroidery, and assemblage. As a process artist, she approaches every lump of clay, scrap of fabric, and spontaneous mark as an opportunity to discover what the day, and life itself, might reveal. A scribble becomes a girl, a bell becomes a doll, and a broken object becomes something newly whole. Transformation is a method of making and a philosophy for living.
In Dear Life, Erin Long Loganathan embraces the ugly-pretty of being human while working intuitively across painting, ceramics, embroidery, and assemblage. As a process artist, she approaches every lump of clay, scrap of fabric, and spontaneous mark as an opportunity to discover what the day, and life itself, might reveal. A scribble becomes a girl, a bell becomes a doll, and a broken object becomes something newly whole. Transformation is a method of making and a philosophy for living.
A deep awareness of impermanence is also revealed. Flowers bloom and fade, fruits ripen and spoil, people arrive and depart. Throughout her work, lemons emerge as recurring symbols of hardship and sustenance, echoing the familiar adage of making something meaningful from the fate you are befallen. Plus signs also appear frequently. For Long Loganathan, these gestures are a form of meditation, a way of navigating mental health challenges and the unpredictability of contemporary life. Each + marks a happy thought and becomes a visual reminder to remain optimistic and recognize three good things that surround each difficult moment.
Her ceramic figures, with their loose limbs and playful presence, reflect a commitment to preserving wonder and curiosity. Long speaks of becoming an artist in order to remain connected to the freedom of childhood, and these doll-like forms embody that spirit. Emerging organically through observation and intuition, they reveal the artist's belief that creativity often arrives from somewhere beyond conscious intention.
Themes of healing weave throughout the exhibition. Drawing inspiration from the philosophy of kintsugi, the practice of repairing broken ceramics with gold, Long Loganathan considers how damage, grief, and struggle can become sites of beauty and growth. Cut fabrics are braided into new forms, fragments are reassembled, and imperfections are celebrated rather than concealed. Even her intentionally awkward or “ugly” moments acknowledge an essential truth: life itself is not always polished or beautiful, and art need not pretend otherwise.
Underlying the work is a profound sense of interconnectedness. Long Loganathan reflects on Jay Carrier’s question, If we were hawks, what would the land look like below?, and the perspective described by astronauts who, recently seeing Earth from space, recognize the planet as a single shared home. From this vantage point, division dissolves and collective care becomes essential. References to women supporting women, motherhood, acts of resistance, and communal healing reinforce this belief that strength is often found through connection.
Artist Statement
My work begins in uncertainty.
Each painting and ceramic piece in Dear Life starts with a willingness to make something awkward, unresolved, or even ugly. I push materials beyond comfort, layering texture, color, and form until the work reaches a point of tension. The process mirrors life itself: messy, imperfect, and often marked by periods where meaning feels difficult to find. The challenge—and the hope—is in staying with it long enough to discover a meaningful shift.
This body of work explores the space between sadness and joy, grief and beauty, despair and resilience. Created during a time when the world often feels heavy and fractured, Dear Life is an act of address—an intimate conversation with existence itself. Not blind optimism, but a steady belief that beauty can coexist with hardship, and that healing is possible without denying reality.
I am drawn to materials that carry imperfection. Burlap frays, clay cracks, surfaces that resist control. Rather than concealing these qualities, I embrace them. The process becomes one of reconciliation: finding harmony where there was discord, beauty where there was roughness, and meaning within contradiction.
Lemons appear in the work as symbols of transformation. They speak to the familiar idea of making lemonade out of life’s difficulties, but also to the alchemy of art itself: taking what is sour, complicated, or painful and creating something luminous from it. Gold foil, textured burlap, playful ceramic dolls, imaginary skies, and vibrant color all serve as reminders that positivity can emerge from unexpected places.
The women surrounded in gold who inhabit these pieces embody resilience, intuition, tenderness, and strength. They are not perfect heroines but figures navigating change. Alongside them, whimsical ceramic forms introduce moments of humor and wonder—small invitations to remain curious, even when circumstances feel uncertain.
Ultimately, Dear Life is about resolution—not perfection, but acceptance. It is about learning to hold opposing truths at once: that life can be heartbreaking and beautiful, fragile and abundant, ugly and extraordinary. Through these paintings and sculptures, I hope viewers can recognize their own experiences of transformation and leave with a sense of hope… and see their own perfection.
—
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of two friends and fellow artists, Jay Carrier and Muhammad Zaman, whose dear lives and work continue to resonate deeply. Their voices, presence, creativity, and spirit remain part of the broader conversation of art and the communities it builds.
A special thank you to more dear lives whose love and support helped shape and carry this exhibition into being: Aaron Loganathan, Molly Eisenhaur, Jack Eisenhaur, Stella, Joanie Long, Gene Long, Celia Vicente Pearce, Jody Selin, Megan Farrell, Becca Bass, The Terra Clay Studio Family, Susan Feyen, Katherine Harty Hastings, The 712 Mercantile Family, and Grace Meibohm.
—
Erin's Work
