Biography

I am Chris Long, an artist, printmaker, and composer. My academic journey includes a first class degree in fine art and music from the University of Liverpool, a Master's degree in music composition from Newcastle University, and the completion of a PhD at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

I am predominantly a visual artist, a printmaker, but also work in mixed media and photography. I am an award winning composer specialising in choral and orchestral music.

I have three areas I work in; experimental abstract works; works informed by nature and landscape; and graphic illustrative designs. I am interested in the repetition and development of motifs, in expressive texture and the interplay between abstraction and natural forms, in particular, landscape. This is sometimes on a small scale, in the ‘mini print’ format, other times on a larger scale.

Imagery is explored through relief printing and intaglio collagraph, drypoint and carbarundum techniques. These platemaking processes involve a variety of materials, and in the case of carbarundum, a fine powder that ‘holds’ ink. Images emerge from the dynamism of making and experimentation.

I exhibit and sell work locally, in the UK and internationally. Recent exhibitions saw work in exhibitions in the USA, Spain, France, Bulgaria and Japan. In the UK, I had work represented at the 2023 Southbank Printmakers miniprint exhibition in London, and sales at the Royal Society of Printmakers Bankside Gallery. I won the Experimental Printmaking Award in 2023 at the Kazanlak Miniprint and was International Juror for the 2024 edition. I am currently embarking on a new project with the 1970 Gallery on the Isle of Skye who will be stocking my recent ‘Tidal’ print collection.

At the heart of my work there is an interplay between abstraction and natural representation and an aims to place beauty and immediacy of communication at the heart of the visual experience.