Caymanian House
Caymanian House (1975) is typical of Charles Long’s flat, decorative style of painting and preferred choice of subject matter — in this case Caymanian domestic architecture embodied in the form of a traditional cottage. Seen from our contemporary perspective, Long’s work today captures a moment of transition in Caymanian society, when socio-economic shifts were dramatically transforming the Islands’ physical and cultural landscape. These images are further tinged with nostalgia, since much of what they depict has now vanished into memory.
About the Artist
Charles Long
b. 1948
Born in West Africa, Charles Long grew up in Swaziland and England, where he attended Farnham School of Art. He settled in the Cayman Islands in the late 1960s and became a founding member and first secretary of the Visual Art Society. Long has been dubbed a “chronicler of our times”, a phrase that became the title of a 2002 retrospective of his work at NGCI. Other key exhibitions include the Santo Domingo Biennale (2003) and Carifesta X in Guyana (2008). Long’s highly collectable work forms part of the permanent collections of NGCI and the Cayman Islands National Museum. NGCI exhibitions include the solo show Charles Long – Chronicler of Our Time (2002), Portrait of an Artist (2003), All Access (2015), Mediating Self (2017), Tropical Visions (2019), and Island of Women: Life at Home During our Maritime Years (2020).
