Curated by Mireille Eagan
With Ned Pratt, there is no nostalgia, no romance, and no theatre. His formal approach consciously undermines compositional rules to produce sophisticated and unique imagery.
Ned Pratt’s respect for his home island’s landscape is the foundation for his work. His approach to the act of looking transcends place, however, installing him as a significant new voice in Canadian art. As he drives through familiar landscapes, he waits for compositions to reveal themselves. He distills found locations in his photographs, abstracting the features of a place to elegant compositions of form and colour. His works disrupt depth with close architectural details and incisions of poles and wires, undermining a traditional, romantic notion of “looking out” to a sublime view.
This exhibition will chart a decade of Pratt’s photography. The exhibition design will echo Pratt’s aesthetic style, presenting his works in formal conversation. Earlier, stark imagery of buildings will be placed alongside his forays into abstraction, as well as his recent celebrations of the inherent geometry of organic forms — such as a single wave crashing over a wall.
Circulated by The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, St. John’s, NL
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