HEART TAKES FLIGHT
Artist
Catherine Long
Heart Takes Flight is curated by Wilder Gallery for Lucent, 1 Sherwood St, London, Piccadilly Circus and presented in collaboration with A Space For Art. The exhibition continues until January 2026
Rhythm is the starting point for each of Catherine Long’s paintings. With a background in contemporary cross-disciplinary dance and improvisation, Long’s work is rooted in a painting process that evokes the somatic feeling of dancing. Her trio of paintings for Heart Takes Flight are large-scale explorations of movement, colour, and form that offer an immersive sensory experience for the viewer.
Long’s current way of working emerged from a period of time bookended by operations on both hips and diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer in her 30s. Unable to dance to the same level and seeking to move away from performance, she looked to large-scale abstract painting as a means of exploring the relationship between paint and the moving body, looking to imbue the energy of dance into the surface of the canvas. Painting, which Long sees as a personal performance, activates a somatic space for the artist in which to consider improvisation, choreography, and in-the-moment reactions.
Long begins by choosing an initial colour with which to start, before selecting a piece of music, establishing a rhythm and mode of movement in which to work. She approaches the blank canvas with dynamic, rapid gestures to lay a compositional groundwork. Allowing each layer to dry, she repeatedly returns to the canvas, building up the image as an accretion that acts as an archive of her movements over a period of time. Although she begins by painting and moving quickly, as each work comes together, Long’s process slows down until eventually she makes the final touches that allow the composition to mesh together.
This durational approach signifies Long’s interest in traces and remnants. As she works, previously placed marks are covered, but never completely erased; resonances and traces feed through each layer. This notion is in part drawn from the artist’s lived experience of the post-surgical mark on the body, and the associated idea that a mark, once made, can never be undone.
The works in this exhibition come out of a period of time Long spent on residency at Porthmeor Studios in St Ives, Cornwall. Heart Takes Flight, from which the show takes its title, was made during this residency, inspired obliquely by the holistic experience of being immersed in the local landscape and named after a song that was key to its creation.
Working with a bold palette that evokes a natural environment, the psychological pull and impact of colour play a key role in Long’s desire to create works that continually open themselves up to their audience, offering something new on each viewing. Drawing on the world of dance, the artist seeks to invoke a feeling of kinaesthetic empathy, where the neural networks associated with movement are activated in the viewer while watching dance, even if they are sitting still themselves. Long is interested in the potential of painting to achieve a similarly embodied experience for the viewer, proposing that the bodily movement captured in the surface of painting is a fundamental part of its power.
Text by Anna Souter
Date:
14 October 2025 - January 2026
Education and professional development
2024 – MA Painting, Royal College of Art, London
2023 – Turps Art School Studio Painting Programme, London
2017 – PhD Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, University of the Arts London
2010 – MA Dance, De Montfort University – Distinction
2006 – BA (Hons) Dance, De Montfort University – First
Solo exhibitions
2021 – The body keeps the score mark II, Chisenhale Art Place
2019 – Rotator Cuff, 139 Artspace, London.
2016 – In the Eye of the Beholder, Chelsea College of Arts, London.
2015 – A Dialogue with the Camera, The Cookhouse, London.
Group exhibitions and screenings
2025 – PAPER, Huxley-Parlour, London
2025 – In Dialogue with Ilse D’Hollander, Verduyn Gallery, Belgium
2024 – Scene V: Pas de Quatre, Matt Carey-Williams, London
2024 – Royal College of Art Painting MA Degree Show, London
2023 – SAFEHOUSE 2, Safehouse, London
2023 – Ripe bananas!, Turps Leavers Show, London
2023 – Recreational Grounds VII, Wendover House car park, London
2022 – Mood times ten, Fitzrovia Gallery, London
2022 – Blink and you’ll miss it, Safehouse, London
2020 – Beyond the Body, Cryptofiction, online screening
2019 – Captives of Habit, The Old Police Station, Deptford X, London
2019 – Material Gestures, Art Licks Weekend, London
2019 – Beyond the Body, Wolf Cinema, Berlin
2019 – Superette, Pada Studios, Lisbon
2018 – In Whose Eyes?, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, London
2018 – The Body Keeps The Score, durational performance, Art Night, London
2017 – Vacant in use, The Old Police Station, Deptford X, London
2017 – Wimmin!!!, Sapient Razorfish, London
2016 – We all have a problem with representation, The Showroom, London
2015 – Feminist Practices in Dialogue, ICA, London
2014 – A Voice of One’s Own, Playhouse Gallery, London
2013 – Recontested Sites/Sights, Chelsea College of Arts, London
2013 – State and Statuses in Art and Cultural Production, Royal College of Art, London
2012 – Towards Common Ground, Bread and Roses Film Festival, London
2012 – Kadin – Feminism between East and West, Arbeit Gallery, London
2012 – Artists Moving Image, Curzon Cinema, London
2012 – Position Place Situate Locate, Chelsea College of Arts, London
Residencies
2025 – Porthmeor Residency Programme, Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, Cornwall, UK
2021 – Percolate research residency, Siobhan Davies Dance, London, UK
2021 – Studio4Summer, Chisenhale Art Place, London, UK
2019 – PADA Studios, Lisbon, Portugal
Curating
2023 – Recreational Grounds VII, London
2019 – Captives of Habit, Deptford X, London
2019 – Material Gestures, Art Licks Weekend, London
2018 – In Whose Eyes?, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, London
2016 – We all have a problem with representation, The Showroom, London
2015 – Feminist Practices in Dialogue, ICA, London
Awards & Grants
2022 – A-N Time Space Money Artist Bursaries
2021 – Percolate, Siobhan Davies Dance
2021 – Studio4Summer, Chisenhale Art Place
2019 – Project Grant, Arts Council England
2019 – Developing Your Creative Practice, Arts Council England
2016 – Student Initiative Grant, CCW Research School
2015 – Funds for Women Graduates
2015 – Student Initiative Grant, CCW Research School
2014 – Arts & Humanities Research Council Research Travel Grant
2012 – CCW Graduate School Research Travel Grant
2011 – Arts & Humanities Research Council Doctoral Studentship
2009 – Arts & Humanities Research Council MA Research Development Studentship
2006 – Frank May Prize for Excellence in Performance
Talks
2020 – In-conversation with Mania Akbari
2018 – Action Shots and Other Ways to Survive, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall
2018 – Panel discussion with Griselda Pollock, Sonia Boyce, Ope Lori, Rose Gibbs and Enam Gbewonyo at
the In Whose Eyes? symposium
2016 – We’re Anti-Capiphallists, panel discussion, ICA, London
2016 – Speeches of Becoming, workshop, ICA, London
2015 – A Dialogue with the Camera, artist talk, The Cookhouse, London
2015 – Visual representation and the subtle abyss, artist talk, Chelsea College of Arts, London
2013 – State and Statuses in Art and Cultural Production, Royal College of Art, London
Selected Press and Publications
2023 – ‘Threads of Perception’, London Paint Club, Issue No. 3
2019 – ‘Practice in Dialogue: building a feminist collective’, Rose Gibbs, Art Licks, issue 24, Autumn, London:
The Pale Green Press.
2016 – ‘Ope Lori: I Want Me Some Brown Sugar’, Catherine Long, Moving Image Review & Art Journal 4: 1 &
2, London: Intellect.
2015 – ‘Visual Representation and the Subtle Abyss’, Catherine Long, in Rose Gibbs and Catherine Long
(eds) Feminist Practices in Dialogue, London: Ditto Press.
2014 – ‘All That Glitters Is Not Gold’, Catherine Long, in Martina Margini (ed.) Ultra Feminism, Rotterdam:
Roodkapje Gallery.
2013 – ‘Artist feature: Catherine Long’, Elysia Jenson, Blanc: Fashion, Art & Music Magazine, Issue 02.
