About the Book
Thoughts on Driving to Venus documents the thoughts, memories and impressions of Canadian artist Christopher Pratt as he drives across Newfoundland in search of inspiration.
About the Author :
Christopher Pratt is a prominent Canadian painter and printmaker known for creating meticulously precise images of Atlantic Canadian settings. Born in St. John's Newfoundland in 1935, he studied art at the Glasgow School of Art and Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, before deciding in 1963 to dedicate himself to his art full time in his home province of Newfoundland. His works have been exhibited nationally and internationally, and have received many prestigious awards and honours. In 1980, he designed Newfoundland and Labrador's provincial flag. He was named a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1983. Pratt lives and works in St. Mary's Bay in Newfoundland.
Art curator and author, Tom Smart has written many award-winning books and organized numerous exhibitions about Canadian and international art. He has worked in art galleries across Canada and the United States, including the Frick in Pittsburgh, the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, and the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, where he was its executive director.
His monographic exhibitions on east coast Canadian Realists-Alex Colville, Mary and Christopher Pratt, and Tom Forrestall, among others-opened new avenues for understanding this important art movement. While at the McMichael, Tom broadened its exhibition mandate to embrace First Nations art and artists, was instrumental in developing its acclaimed Ivan Eyre Sculpture Garden, and commissioned renowned author Ross King to write a historical portrait of the Group of Seven that was published in 2010 as Defiant Spirits.
Currently, as art curator and supervisor of education at the Peel Art Gallery, Museum and
Review :
A few dozen pages into the work, I thought to myself, "Christopher Pratt is making his soul." The book-extracts from what he called his "car books"-is a series of journals he kept while driving around Newfoundland with his wife Jeanette Meehan, a record of animals seen, photos taken, meals eaten and kilometres covered. The car books started out as a log, a random series of lists and images, a stream-of-consciousness record of what he glimpsed beyond the windscreen. But after a time, the entries morphed into a quasi-journal or diary.'
- Robin McGrath - St. John's Telegram
Ribbed paper, evocative language, and sculpted lines make Thoughts on Driving to Venus an interactive artistic experience of the highest order.
Canadian artist Christopher Pratt's transcribed car books' are gathered together in Thoughts on Driving to Venus, an intersensory and multiyear account of his travels across Newfoundland in search of meaning and inspiration. Natural poetry comes through these keen and artistic observations that bring the distant north to life.
Pratt's car books are situated in the ever-changing landscape of Newfoundland-a land that is gorgeous and unyielding by turns, that brims with silver-greys and sunlit treetops, but where abandoned shanties and unused lobster pots also abound. His observations capture both the beauty and poverty of the landscape.
Lines of thoughts, both idle and grand, gather on the page, transcribed from the passenger's side as Pratt's wife Jeanette ferried him from one end of the island to another: lines written in preparation for paintings; lines that seek the meaning of paintings once made; and lines that are always willing to pause to laud a good cup of Horton's coffee. Those familiar with the process of bringing art to life will find Pratt's musings, which ebb and flow between passion and exhaustion, both sympathetic and endearing.
The layered nature of Pratt's artistry stands to fascinate: paintings are less something that come to him than stories that are chased, as landscapes that looked one way years ago prove wholly different on second pass. He snaps photographs in the right light, and jots notes to capture what the camera cannot:
The sun, which had been shielded by the horsetail clouds, makes a low-angle reappearance and as suddenly the forest glows as if it were phosphorescent, still richly darker than the sky. Then only the tallest trees are lit-a dust of golden snow blown across their tops. Finally they gather to themselves.
Such moments bring stilled dimensions back to life, honoring motion and change. Pratt is convincing at presenting his artwork as encounters with places, ' images about, rather than of, the places that he visits. Each tells a story. Each finds a new way to package the glittering grey. And so, too, does each painting coalesce beneath the brush of an artist who has been told that greens sell less, and who cannot excise that practical knowledge from his work.
Midway through the book, the car books themselves become part of Pratt's exhibits, making interaction with the text a fascinating and informative gallery-esque experience. Lines on disillusionment are moving; brief thoughts on the responsibility of the Canadian government toward nations abroad capture the time period beyond the province. Pratt's entries are adept at both humor-Stopped at McDonald's in Grand Falls for lunch. Many fat people.'-and philosophy, as he warns fellow travelers that revisiting a place you love too often robs it of its emotional power. Skating through the icy landscapes with Pratt is a continually rewarding experience.
Ribbed paper, evocative language, and sculpted lines make Thoughts on Driving to Venus an interactive artistic experience of the highest order. It is an experience that appeals to all of the senses as it introduces Newfoundland to audiences with loving attention, and with the exquisite pain of acknowledging that not every moment can be maintained, no matter how devout an artist is.
- Michelle Anne Schingler - Foreword Reviews - 20160720
It's a rich ride to accompany painter and print maker Christopher Pratt as he jots responses to weather, landscape, wildlife and more while he's driven around Newfoundland-mostly the Burgeo Road, west coast, and northern peninsula.'
- Marjorie Doyle - Atlantic Books Today
What Pratt does so well is reveal the continuum between art and life, making it all seem valuable.'
- Heather Saunders - Artist in Transit
