Rob Longley

Artist Statement

I first studied painting with Dick Goetz at the Malden Bridge School of Art in the summer of 1968. During the following months, my Senior year in high school, I studied with Betty Warren at the Albany Institute of History and Art and then for the next three summers I studied with both Dick and Betty at Malden Bridge.

After high school I attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts and I received a BFA in May of 1973. Among my more influential teachers at B.U. were Reed Kay, who taught both Materials and Techniques and Drawing, and Jack Kramer, who taught Anatomy.

Beginning in the summer of 1971 I studied with Henry Hensche at the Cape School in Provincetown. I returned to Provincetown to study with Henry throughout the ’70’s, and even after I stopped studying in his classes, I continued to have a close association with him, and I lived in various of his studios during the summer through the ’80’s and into the ’90’s.

After graduating from B.U. I devoted myself to improving myself as a painter. In 1976 I was awarded a Greenshields Foundation grant, which is awarded to promising young artists.

My work has been included in numerous juried exhibitions, as recently as the 2017 PAAM Member’s Juried show. I had my first one-man shows in 1979. Currently I exhibit with the Cortile Gallery in Provincetown,  the Sorelle Gallery in New Canaan, CT, and the Philip Janes Gallery in Granby, CT.

I began to teach classes at the Cape Cod School of Art in the early ’90’s and I still teach summer classes at the newly resurrected Cape School of Art.

During the mid-’90’s I began to explore other avenues of visual expression, and eventually I developed a line of work that is very different from the more “traditional” work that I had done previously. My “contemporary” work has been awarded a number of prizes in juried exhibitions, and I have had several one-man shows of this work as well. I was also awarded a grant by New York State. Some have suggested that I should pursue one direction and not the other, but I have never been comfortable with that. I find that my more “contemporary” work satisfies a part of me that my more traditional work does not, but I still find that my “traditional” work is very satisfying, fulfilling something that the other work cannot, so after much thought, I decided to work at both.

And I shall continue to do so.