Willow Trust Illusion

Willow Trust Illusion
A solo exhibition by Brandon Logan

Opening Reception: 18 September 2025, 6-8pm

Sid Motion Gallery is pleased to announce an upcoming solo exhibition by Brandon Logan, organised in collaboration with Tom Cole. Willow Trust Illusion is the Orkney based Logan’s first exhibition in London, following his graduation from Edinburgh College of Art in 2019.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a text by James Cahill.

Logan’s innovative approach to painting is a distinctive process involving the flooding, sealing and warping of lengths of string using the gradual application of layers of paint. The string support allows for colour to be suspended within, resulting in works with an open, fretted structure and an innate delicacy. The porous nature of the paintings carve out an almost sculptural relationship between space and surface. This interplay provides the works with a frequency, a rhythm emerging from within the tender balance between paint and structure.

The title of the exhibition is drawn from three small boats long observed by Logan, docked side by side in Stromness Harbour and alludes to his engagement with place and environment. The paintings acknowledge his surroundings, with the Orkney landscape imbuing the work with a tone and sensibility born of the Scottish Islands. As much as the works explore the richness and inherent potential of paint, they also speak to deeper, human cycles of time and history.

Logan's exhibition is the final iteration in a series of four collaborations between Sid Motion Gallery and Tom Cole. This series has consistently highlighted material-based practices and explored the liminal spaces between craft and art through group exhibitions. The series culminates with Logan's solo exhibition as his techniques begin to dissolve the traditional distinctions between craft and art. His work allows for exploration and experimentation that challenges preconceived binary notions of medium.

Artist Biography

Brandon Logan (b.1996) lives and works in Orkney. He completed his MA (Hons) in Fine Art at Edinburgh College of Art in 2019. His selected solo exhibitions include: 'Brandon Logan: Little Low Heavens', Bard, Edinburgh, 2025; 'Dog Rose', Ingleby, Edinburgh, 2024; 'Skeleton Stories', Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, 2023; 'Instalments', Ingleby, Edinburgh, 2021 and 'Saved Phrases', Zembla Gallery, Hawick, 2019.

His selected group exhibitions include: 'Still Dancing…new adventures in non-representational painting & sculpture', Ingleby, Edinburgh, 2024; 'Akin', Pier Arts Centre, Stromness, 2024; 'Twenty-Five', Ingleby, Edinburgh, 2023; 'Scottish Landscapes: A New Generation', Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, 2023; 'RSA New Contemporaries', Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2020 and 'VAS Graduate Showcase', Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2020.

Longan's selected awards include: RSA Carnegie Scholarship and Maclaine Watters Medal, 2020; The Fleming Collection and Scotland House, Emerging Scottish Artist of the Year, 2020; Visual Arts Scotland Graduate Showcase Award, 2019 and The Astaire Art Prize, 2019.

His work is included in the Public Collections of Pier Art Centre, The University of Edinburgh Art Collection and University of Stirling Art Collection.