2020 exhibition at the Sternview Gallery, Cork City
Sternview Graduate Award (2018)
The title of this exhibition, A Place Where a Thought Might Grow, refers to the poem A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford by Derek Mahon. This verse dwells on the plant-life of a disused shed before opening up to larger themes such as time, history and space. It possesses a panoramic wide focus mediating on the place of humanity within the world.
Long’s work is concerned with the idea of the landscape as a receptacle of human ideas, a place where nature and allegory are intrinsically intertwined, a place where a thought might grow. Her painting series aims to create a credible world from which she questions the reality of mankind’s projections. Working from intuition and intention, Long’s process reveals the artist’s hand and a physical engagement with materials.
The work takes inspiration from the Greek primordial space Chaos, the great chasm from which life exploded and thoughts grew. Long has combined painting and drawing in order to emphasise the tumultuous origins of nature. The works act as terrains of many whims sparked by a variety of different texts, poems and stories. The viewer is invited to enter this fictional landscape.
Sarah Long | Artist 