Elspeth Pratt

Vancouver artist Elspeth Pratt will produce an abstract sculpture for the gallery's street front windows. Using common building materials, Pratt will construct a cohesive composition to create a unified design over nine windows. In general Pratt uses forms and materials that align more closely with architecture than the history of visual art. At times she directly references the space she exhibits in but more often her abstract-like sculptures carry direct references to other more ubiquitous architectural spaces. World Traffic (2004) with a curving cardboard dome and grated base, reflects the now pervasive shape of many new airports. Her wall piece Pendulum (2000), which uses a stick, sponge and wire to precariously balance a protruding block of wood and suspend a carved piece of pink foam, is characteristic of a cantilevered stadium balcony. For Bluff, her new work for the Contemporary Art Gallery, Pratt does both. She responds directly to the space, but also makes reference to more general and common architectural forms.

Biography

Elspeth Pratt is a Vancouver-based artist who uses common building and household materials to explore architectural forms. She has exhibited her work since 1984 with her first solo exhibition at the Contemporary Art Gallery in 1985. Other solo exhibitions include Artspeak, Vancouver; YYZ Artist’s Outlet, Toronto and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge. She has participated in group shows such as Architypes (2004) curated by Greg Bellerby, Felicity Fenner and Makiko Hara for the Charles H. Scott Gallery, Vancouver and the Ivan Dougherty Gallery, Sydney. Her work was also included in Work Work Work (2004) curated by Ingrid Jenkner for MSVU Gallery, Halifax.