Thursday, April 28, 2011

The Art of Mary Pratt



I have enjoyed doing some online research about Mary. Firstly, I was surprised to see that Mary's husband is Christopher Pratt, who is also an outstanding and well recognized Canadian artist.

A quick google search for the art of Mary Pratt brings up a lot of her works.

Words fail me when I look at her above painting. It goes without saying that Mary paints in the Realist style, and when you check out her You Tube Video, from the McMichael Gallery you will note that for many years she painted things which were immediate to her experience.

While this is true for many or maybe most of us, it seems the painterly thing to do is to stylize or dramatize our surroundings, but in the case of the painting above, what could be more ordinary then a collection of jars of jelly sitting on a sheet of aluminum foil?

While Mary may be classified as a Realist - Realism does not mean creating photographic representations with paint. Alex Colville called his works,'magic realism' or realism which transcends reality or becomes more real then real. And it seems that we can apply this definition to the painting we see in this blog entry.

As I said, words fail me in critiquing Mary's works and besides that since I am unable to obtain her permission I will refrain from writing anything which would not meet her approval.

So, let us rejoice that Mary has taken the vin ordinaire of life and turned it into champagne Our lives are enriched for it.
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