WATCH | THE EXHIBITION WALKTHROUGH
Nicholas Metivier Gallery is pleased to announce Burin to Fogo Island, an exhibition of new photographs by Ned Pratt. The exhibition will open on September 9th and run until October 2nd with an opening day reception on Saturday, September 11th. This is Pratt's fourth solo exhibition at the gallery.
Ned Pratt has lived in Newfoundland for almost his entire life. Its architecture and landscape are firmly ingrained in him as well as his artistic practice. Despite this deep connection, his work exists without sentimentality. He relies on the ocean, human-made structures, and rugged terrain for formal considerations only, similarly to how a painter might look at a still life.
This exhibition highlights two iconic and relatively remote locations in Newfoundland, the Burin Peninsula and Fogo Island. On the Burin, Pratt visited fishing communities including Bay L'Argent and Little Harbour East. Often described as both austere and tough, the landscape has an erratic coastline with round stone beaches juxtaposed by large fjords.
Fogo Island is known as a spiritual place with vast sky and barren rock. Historically a diverse fishing community, the island has attracted visitors from all over the world since its development by Shorefast Foundation and Fogo Island Inn, the subject of one of Pratt's new photographs, Modern Stage. Pratt describes the island as both a part of Newfoundland as well as its own entity, strangely defiant in its isolation. Pratt has visited Fogo Island several times and this trip, a month-long residency he completed through Arts & Minds Canada, was the most time he has ever spent there.
From Burin to Fogo Island, I was seeing the shapes, colours and relationships that are true to my approach, and others that were new and challenging. Successes and failures but also a beautiful urgency to work that I am grateful for.
- Ned Pratt
