Image credit: Sarah Larby / courtesy of Brave ProjectsCatherine Long’s painting practice explores the relationship between bodily experience, movement and the materiality of paint. Drawing on a background in contemporary dance, she approaches painting as an embodied process, informed by somatic awareness, spatial intelligence and improvisation. Rather than seeing painting as a departure from movement, Long treats the canvas as a choreographic field: an arena activated through the body, rhythm and gesture. Her work draws on a sustained engagement with experimental practices across dance, music and visual art, where process and embodied perception take precedence over representation.
Working primarily at scale, Long builds her paintings through an extended process of accumulation and erasure. Sinuous contours, gestural marks and passages of colour are layered, obscured and reworked, allowing traces of earlier decisions to remain active within the surface. Instead of working towards a predetermined image, she responds to the painting as it develops, moving between intuition and conscious decision-making.
Colour is central to this process. Long is interested in its capacity to affect the body and shape perception, creating sensations that are felt before they are interpreted. Her paintings draw on experiences of movement, memory and landscape, not as subjects to be represented, but as forms of embodied knowledge that inform the process of painting.
The resulting compositions resist narrative resolution, instead inviting a direct, physiological encounter – one in which sensation precedes interpretation and viewing becomes an embodied experience.
Catherine Long is a British painter based in London. She is represented by Huxley-Parlour, where she presented her solo exhibition After the Fire in 2026. Recent exhibitions include The Body as Dwelling at Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, Rome (2026), Heart Takes Flight, presented with Wilder Gallery at Lucent Piccadilly, London (2025), and exhibitions with LBF Contemporary, Gillian Jason Gallery, Verduyn Gallery and Matt Carey-Williams. Her work has been presented internationally at The Armory Show, New York (2025 and 2026), Miart, Milan (2026), and Untitled Art, Miami Beach (2025).
Long completed an MA in Painting at the Royal College of Art in 2024 and the Turps Studio Painting Programme in 2023. She holds a PhD in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Arts and an MA in Dance from De Montfort University. Recent residencies include Porthmeor Studios, St Ives, and Chisenhale Studios, London.
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
Selected solo presentations
2026 – After the Fire, Huxley-Parlour, London
2025 – Heart Takes Flight, Wilder Gallery at Lucent, London
Art Fairs
2026 – The Armory Show, Huxley-Parlour, New York, USA
2026 – Miart, Huxley-Parlour, Milan, Italy
2025 – Untitled Art Miami Beach, Huxley-Parlour, USA
2025 – The Armory Show, Huxley-Parlour, New York, USA
Selected group exhibitions
2026 – Contemporary Women Artists at Casa Andersen – The Body as Dwelling, Museo Hendrik Christian Andersen, Rome, Italy
2026 – The Books of Lilith, APT Gallery, London, UK
2025 – Sight Lines, Hurst Contemporary, London, UK
2025 – La Patte, Huxley-Parlour, London, UK
2025 – Existential Licence, Friary Road, London, UK
2025 – LBF @ the Lake Vol.II, LBF Contemporary, Muskoka, Canada
2025 – The Sway of Form, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2025 – PAPER, Huxley-Parlour, London, UK
2025 – In Dialogue with Ilse D’Hollander, Verduyn Gallery, Belgium
2024 – Scene V: Pas de Quatre, Matt Carey-Williams, London, UK
2024 – Royal College of Art Painting MA Degree Show, London, UK
2023 – Ripe bananas!, Turps Leavers Show, London, UK
2023 – Recreational Grounds VII, Wendover House car park, London, UK
2019 – Captives of Habit, The Old Police Station, Deptford X, London, UK
2019 – Material Gestures, Art Licks Weekend, London, UK
2018 – In Whose Eyes?, Beaconsfield Gallery Vauxhall, London, UK
2015 – Feminist Practices in Dialogue, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK
Selected performances and screenings
2023 – With Flowers and My Love, performance, Recreational Grounds VII, Wendover House car park, London
2021 – The body keeps the score mark II, durational performance, Chisenhale Art Place
2019 – Beyond the Body, Wolf Cinema, Berlin
2018 – The Body Keeps The Score, durational performance, Beaconsfield, London
2016 – Arthritic Dances, performance, The Showroom, London
2012 – Artists Moving Image, Curzon Cinema, London
2012 – Towards Common Ground, Bread and Roses Film Festival, London
Collections
Works held in private collections in the UK, USA, Belgium, China, Portugal, Singapore, Australia, France, Spain and the UAE
Awards and Funding
2025 – Arts Council England, Developing Your Creative Practice
2024 – New Blood Art Emerging Art Prize – nominee
2011 – Arts and Humanities Research Council, Doctoral Studentship
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