Mireille Eagan – författare

"When you revisit a place that matters to you for the first time in a long time it is a rich, spiritual experience, but if you then revisit such a place too frequently it loses some of its power. The power lies in the absences." — Christopher PrattWidely considered to be one of Canada's most prominent and celebrated painters, Christopher Pratt stands with other great artists — Alex Colville, Lawren P. Harris, Jean Paul Lemieux, and Lionel LeMoine Fitzgerald — who influenced him and the way he represents the land. But Pratt's greatest influence is perhaps the geography of his home province of Newfoundland.The Places I Go focuses on Pratt's paintings of the last decade, each revealing his observations of a place changing even as it endures. Beginning in 2005, Pratt started to travel by car to "everywhere I've ever been," recording his travels in his "car books," in his memory, and, ultimately, in his paintings.The paintings that resulted from this journey are vintage Pratt. They are also acts of remembering, of recording, of becoming the observer of transformation. Standing on "the littoral," looking toward the horizon, Pratt casts his eye on the perpetual presence of the ocean. Yet, his images — houses, spillways, bridges, and boats — also pay homage to the right angles of humanity. Buried in snow, at rest in a dock, they celebrate the built form.This exquisite book, featuring essays by exhibition curator Mireille Eagan, archivist Larry Dohey, and Pratt himself, examines Pratt's interest in and preoccupation with transformation, the act of remembering, and his abstractions of the ineffable.

"The light in Pratt's paintings seems sentient, a living thing, a pulsation or emission, imbuing the paintings with an erotic and almost mystical desire." — Canadian ArtFollowing a stunningly successful national touring exhibition and a sold-out hardcover edition of the accompanying book, Mary Pratt is available once again in this elegant paperback edition.Says the Globe and Mail, Mary Pratt's "gorgeous, brutal vision of the world is the best revenge against anyone who ever sought to define her."There's something deeply resonant about Pratt's painting for contemporary audiences — particularly for those that are food obsessed. The dark light of a jelly jar, the slippery weight of filleted cod, the dark drippings of a bloody roast, the wet yellow yolk of a cracked egg. Pratt takes these seemingly mundane subjects and fills them with light, giving them a monumental quality, making them seem luminous, signifiant, memorable. For many, they have become seared into memory, iconic in the best sense of the word.Mary Pratt, a career retrospective, features five major essays by columnist and art critic Sarah Milroy, Catharine Mastin of the Art Gallery of Windsor, Mireille Eagan and Caroline Stone of The Rooms Provincial Art Gallery, Sarah Fillmore of the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and art critic and curator Ray Cronin as well as 75 colour reproductions of Pratt's most renowned work, including Eggs in an Egg Crate, Salmon on Saran, Eviscerated Chickens, and Cod Fillets on Tin Foil.