Sarah LONGLANDS

She studied Fine Art at Bristol and Manchester before doing post-graduate studies at "THe Slade School of Fine Art" in London. Her work is ostensibly realistic, but goes beyond this to explore the nature of reality, and of time and space, but it is easy to enjoy the work without thinking about the metaphysics.

"For several years I had a studio in an unused room of a violin restorers and dealers, in the sea-side resort of Blackpool. This gave me a great interest in the violin as an object - the curves and corners, the qualities of the different woods and the depth of the varnish. Now no longer there, I am still from time to time drawn to use violins in my work, and here are some of them.
The painting titled "Avant le Deluge", for instance, shows three violins and a tenor viola, a newly made quartet, hanging on a line for the varnish to dry, with storm quietly gathering behind. Whereas in the painting "Unfinished-2" I was interested in the contrast of the Amati brothers tenor viola, made in 1592, and the half-made instrument by its side, and in "Unfinished-1" I was interested in the contrast of a very old violin in need of repair, and the same half-made instrument by its side. Over two hundred years separate these two instruments."

Sarah LONGLANDS