Persistence of Trace
West Cork Arts Centre, 2026
Curated by Ann Davoren
An exhibition of new and recent work by four artists – Barbara Diener, Sophie Gough, Sarah Long and Áine Ryan who share an interest in identity and other intersecting concerns – memory, time and representation.
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Keep Your Crawling Fingers Off My Poetry
The exhibition features a new iteration of my painting and sound installation, titled Keep Your Crawling Fingers Off My Poetry (2026). The work uses the Greek myth of Diana and Actaeon, the poetry of Seamus Heaney and allusions to Irish painting history to reflect on notions of representation, the properties of painting and the limitations of language to lay “claim” to an experience.
The work is rooted in Seamus Heaney’s poem “Aisling” which makes reference to a Mother Ireland figure, Greek mythology and the material qualities of language. I draw a connection between the word “mute”, to deafen or silence and a lost meaning of the word as “a pack of hounds” to portray the interconnectedness of visual and written language.
I am interested in the “voice” of a painting. My playful titles allude to the messiness and inarticulateness of language. “I don’t know even know the name, / But if I did, well, really what’s it to ya?” and “Sincerely, S. Long” reference Leonard Cohen and in particular niche verses from his famous song Hallelujah. The folkloric history of this song touches off my interest in gossip, multiplicity and the notion of language as a living and evolving entity. The former painting focuses on the hounds in the Greek myth who were all given names and individual stories. I view this obsession with these story details as a demonstration of the limits of our perception.
Sincerely, S. Long also cites the painting Lady Lavery Sketches (1910) depicting Hazel Lavery and rendered by her husband John Lavery. I’m interested in this genre of painting that depicts women painting but little evidence of the sitter’s output exist. Representations of Hazel Lavery by her husband were used to evoke the Mother Ireland figure, such as Portrait of Lady Lavery as Kathleen Ní Houlihan (1927). Sincerely, S. Long is another reference to Cohen but it is also a demonstration of the power of language to assert existence.
I thought a lot about Kerry Guinan’s book Looking for a Sign: Contemporary Art, Magic and Language when I was making this work. I cast a particular “spell” with my wire drawing that hangs underneath these paintings “There is a small piece of land in the word struggle”. I also included other sentences I’ve collected and grown around, “I’m never going to be able to sleep out here”, that evoke endless possibilities for me. The wire drawing evokes the language and rituals of girlhood that create a unique relationship with the landscape.
Sarah Long | Artist 