Issue 2 Artist Spotlight | Chelsea Long
C+B: Tell us about yourself, Chelsea!
CL: My practice primarily includes gouache and oil paintings of figurative, landscape and still life imagery. I live and work in Pennsylvania and take a lot of inspiration from my surroundings. I use images that I’ve taken of greenery and the woodland landscape and digitally collage them together to use as reference material.
I’m drawn to things that seem delicate; people and aspects of nature both fit that category in my mind. I’ve started including fawns in some of my more recent paintings. They’re not hard to come by and I get excited to see one every time. They’re beautiful and graceful, but awkward at the same time. They have this very delicate appearance, with their unstable legs, but can manage to make it through a harsh winter. The contrast that can be found in nature between a delicate appearance and resilience is alluring to me.
C+B: Describe your work in three words.
CL: Figurative, intimate, meticulous
C+B: Describe your ideal collaboration.
CL: The most collaborative stage in my process is when I’m working with models. I work from photographs, often multiple images combined, for each painting. I’m no photographer, but I’m able to get the visual information I need to reference for paintings. It’s rare that I use a photo that I haven’t taken myself. It feels something like recording someone else’s experience and I lose interest.
I bring various props to the sessions; different chairs, fabrics, and I build floral crowns with fresh flowers ahead of time for them to wear. During the session I discuss my ideas about the paintings with the models so they can interpret them through their poses. I come with a few ideas for poses I want to see, but they bring their ideas and others just come from trying things in the moment. It’s a part of the process that I really enjoy and I look forward to sorting through the photos afterwards to start planning out the paintings in more detail.
C+B: Describe your ideal creative retreat.
CL: Since I’ve been including floral elements and landscapes, I’d really like to do some plein air painting. I might make studies of color pallets and patterns from observation since they never seem to translate as well in photographs. It would be nice to have a chunk of time to only focus on that and see what develops from it.
Find and support Chelsea here:
IG: @c._long
(Claire de Lune, oil on board, 36”x48”
©Chelsea Long)
Long-term goals for creating: There are so many projects and paintings in my mind. I always have more ideas than time, so I often feel like I’m struggling to keep up with myself. Generally, I’d like to continue elaborating on the visual themes I’ve been working with in a new body of work, broaden my audience, and make my practice more sustainable.
For the next body of work I’m planning, I’m looking forward to creating more complex compositions and including multiple figures. I spent time learning more about digital tools during quarantine and want to use them to combine and collage my reference imagery in new ways. I also started working with gouache and want to further explore what I can do with the medium.
Ideal creative retreat: Since I’ve been including floral elements and landscapes, I’d really like to do some plein air painting. I might make studies of color pallets and patterns from observation since they never seem to translate as well in photographs. It would be nice to have a chunk of time to only focus on that and see what develops from it.
Currently inspired by: Agostino Arrivabene @agostinoarrivabene, Justin Mortimer @justinmortimerartist, Vincent Desiderio @vincent_desiderio, Christian Rex van Minnen @van_minnen, Stephen Bauman @stephenbaumanartwork, Colleen Barry @colleenbarryart, Natalia Fabia @nataliafabia, Hollis Dunlap @hollisdunlap, Florian Eymann @florianeymann, Linsey Levendall @linsey_levendall, Cian McLoughlin @cianmcloughlinartist, Pascal Vilcollet @pascalvilcollet, @paul_cristina, Daniel Segrove @dsegrove, Maria Kreyn @mariakreyn, Felipe Alonso @___felipealonso___
Chelsea Long
