Artist's Statement

I am a visual artist with a focus on painting and drawing. Making art has been a means of understanding and engaging with my world since I was a child. I work with traditional materials: oil paint, charcoal, paper, wooden panels. I like the simplicity of these materials, their natural characteristics. Soil, seeds, trees: these things have life in them. My process is highly intuitive and open, evolving in the moment, like a living being, a wild thing. Inspiration comes to me in many forms: a color, a word, a stranger on the street. It can come from an emotion or an idea, or something as simple as the act of holding a pencil. The origin doesn’t really matter; where it begins is only the beginning. What is more important is where it goes and what happens along the way, what gets recorded, what gets erased. I love the living world in all its forms, the temporal and changing nature of being, the wild, mysterious, and the unknown. I live in Philadelphia.

These paintings are from a series about anxiety and ritualistic healing. Using knots as symbols of anxiety- stomach knots, muscle tension- these explorations provide an opportunity to examine negative emotions and find beauty and positivity in them as a path to wellness. Knots also have a constructive aspect; they connect things, and symbolize unity and a desire to hold together what seems in danger of falling apart. Thus deprived of their negative symbolism, they are rendered innocuous. The healing ritual is furthered by untangling them and weaving them into something that gives warmth, comfort and protection. Traditionally undervalued as a women’s craft, weaving is a powerful expression of egalitarianism and a necessary antidote to the hierarchical and authoritarian thinking that threatens our very existence. Translated into paint, these weavings lose their functional value and become symbols with larger implications.

Education

2011
Penumbra Foundation, New York, NY
Wet Plate Collodion Class

1990
University of Georgia, Athens, GA
BFA

Awards & Honors

2017
Vermont Studio Center Residency

2016
Honorable Mention, BWAC, Brooklyn, NY

Bibliography

Publications

2020
Unlikely Stories Mark V, August

2012
Studio Visit Magazine, Fall

2002
New Delta Review, Fall/Winter

Collections

Public Projects

2016
Art Truck Project

2014
Spirit Handling photography book design and production

2008
Mural, Center City, Baton Rouge, LA

1998
Mural, Highland Coffees, Baton Rouge, LA

Commissions

1997
Life & Death, Painting series, Highland Coffees, Baton Rouge, LA

Selected Exhibitions

Solo

‍2019
Elizabeth Pratt: New Works, Art Egg Gallery & Studios, New Orleans, LA

2015
Elizabeth Pratt: Small Works, Mid City Theater, New Orleans, LA

2004
Elizabeth Pratt: Paintings, Soren Christensen Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Group

‍2021
Art of the State, Pennsylvania State Museum, Harrisburg, PA

Ellarslie Open, Trenton City Museum, Trenton, NJ

2019
6th Annual Juried Show , Artspace 111, Ft. Worth, TX

2017
From the Outside In, Lemieux Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Art Fields Annual Juried Exhibition, Jones Carter Gallery, Lake City, SC

2016
Wide Open 7, BWAC, Brooklyn, NY

Texas National 2016, Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, TX

La Femme, New Orleans Art Center, New Orleans, LA

2015
Bywater Biennial, New Orleans Art Center, New Orleans, LA

2nd Annual Juried Show, Artspace 111, Ft. Worth, TX

Bon Appetit, Linus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

Artmelt, Louisiana State Museum, Baton Rouge, LA

Compact Competition, LSU Union Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA

2014
Artfields, Lake City, SC

Small Works, The Mitchell Gallery, Annapolis, MD

2013
Artfields, Jones Carter Gallery, Lake City, SC

Group show, Art Council of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA

Small Works, The Mitchell Gallery, Annapolis, MD

2012
Venus Envy, Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA

Mixed Media 2012, Slidell Cultural Center, Slidell, LA

2011
Art Melt, Louisiana State Museum, Baton Rouge, LA

2010
Venus Envy, Baton Rouge Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA

Art Melt, Louisiana State Museum, Baton Rouge, LA

Group Show, Ann Connelly Fine Art, Baton Rouge, LA

Other

‍2021
Philadelphia Open Studio Tours, Philadelphia, PA

2018
NORO Open Studios, New Orleans, LA

2017
NORO Open Studios, New Orleans, LA

2016
NORO Open Studios, New Orleans, LA

2015
NORO Open Studios, New Orleans, LA