Tom Smart, The Art of Mary Pratt: The Substance of Light, Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, 1995, pages 121 and 123
Representative emblems of the end of time with a pseudo-post-apocolyptic underlying theme, Pratt's Bonfire series of works references a poem by Robert Frost rooted in the belief that the world will end in conflagration by fire or encased in ice. The series was inspired by Pratt's existential questions as a artist and woman and her relationship to the accepted artist/muse relationship. Pratt argued that if women are the muse for men, then objects and the things a woman collects are the muse for women which are then given back to the man—meals, laundry, and homewares, for example. These items are painstakingly taken care of by women, to only be given back to men, Pratt argued. This realization of Pratt's sparked a fire within to briefly explore this angst in her practice.
On her Bonfire series of works, Pratt recalls that capturing the fire was “great fun” and that “the fire had to be alive.” On her painterly process, Tom Smart explains that “rather than confine herself to the use of oil paint when describing fire, Pratt combined watercolour, pastel and chalk in multi-media drawings on large paper. The change in media and format, adapted to the new subject, allowed her to actively and physically to engage in the process of creation...In the past, she was she was interested in describing the effects of light on surfaces. In the bonfire drawings, she was able to represent light itself at the moment of its creation as it consumes matter.” “Bonfire” embodies diverse connotations of apocalypse, ritual, sacrifice and cleansing liberation through the radiating flames.
This artwork is being sold to benefit The Fluvarium - An environment education centre which is a project of The Quidi Vidi/Rennie's River Development Foundation in St. John's, Newfoundland.
