About: Artist Nick Long

University of Tennessee

Nick Long, educated at the University of Tennessee where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1972, had the opportunity to study with Carl Sublett, NA, a master watercolorist who moved with ease among styles as divergent as Abstract Expressionism and a highly personal form of romantic realism. The seminal abstractionist Walter Hollis Stevens was an early influence on Long's mastery of the language of abstraction, while both men demonstrated, and helped him attain, a thorough grounding in technique.

His major field of study was Design, a choice made for, he says, "practical reasons," but a decision that helped him to shape and hone his craft and enabled him to enroll in painting and drawing classes in addition to his design courses for the four years he spent as an undergraduate. A year after graduating, Long spent three years in the U. S. Army, working as an illustrator, before returning to UT for post-graduate work in drawing and painting.

In 1977, he pursued a career in design and illustration. Developing, over the years, an "edginess" in his award-winning work combining timeless aesthetic principles with contemporary imagery for the music, publishing, and financial industries. The demands of a burgeoning career and the distractions of family life, prevented him from pursuing his interest in painting and drawing with seriousness for more than 15 years, but in the early nineties, he began, once again, to concentrate on drawing in graphite as a primary medium.

Since then his work has been featured in a number of important national and international juried exhibitions/competitions, winning 9 awards with paintings and drawings in the last 4 years.

To cite but a few examples, in 2001, he received the "Kent Day Coes Memorial Award" in the American Watercolor Society's 134th International Exhibition and was also chosen for the AWS 135th Exhibition, Hilton Head Artist's League National Competition, Artist's Magazine International Competition where Long was a finalist in the still-life category in 2001 and 2003, and the Arts for the Parks Top 100 at Grand Teton National Park in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

In 2005, one of his drawings will be featured in the book "How Did You Paint That?" Vol. II published by International Artist Magazine.

Recently, he took up painting once again, and, despite his claim that it has been "a struggle to find a stylistic home," he has found his métier in Realism - not, one should note, the cold and, occasionally, off-putting Realism of the "super-realists" or "photo-realists," but an engaging, embracing, accessible "high-realism" that is anchored in his personal aesthetic - the interesting shapes, deep shadows, and beautiful light that create dynamic compositions with visual energy. As many artists will attest, art chose him at an early age and it continues to compel him to communicate "startling moments of visual clarity" which he still views as a "high calling and a great challenge."

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