About – Emma Louise Pratt

About

I studied at Ilam School of Fine Art, Canterbury University, New Zealand. While my focus was on graphic design, my love was drawing and painting. I am though, forever grateful to my teachers the late Max Hailstone and Prof. Dr Lawrence Wallen as well as visiting tutors, who instilled in me a love of balance and visual interconnection. I later completed a post-graduate in Museum Studies, where the focus was on collections management, interpretation of museum collections, our cultural history, and our role as the carers of the histories and providers of ways for these stories to be told. My curiosity for our histories and what makes us who we are had already been flourishing from childhood, but these years working alongside some great artists, curators, historians and managers of precious New Zealand collections cemented my love of a good story!

I have been runner up in the New Zealand Molly Morpeth Canaday Award (2005), a finalist in the Norsewear Award (2007) again in New Zealand, finalist in the Focus Abengoa International Painting Prize, Spain (2014), and finalist in the Parkin Drawing Prize (2019) in New Zealand.

My visual work was originally landscape-based where I explored specific landscapes that conveyed significance to me either for their historical or personal importance, serving as they always have, as a personal travel map. My work is currently moving into the figurative realm as I explore narratives for a graphic novel.

Emma Louise Pratt (9)

Wandering Folk and Identity: Aotearoa New Zealand… without Borders

I’m part of “the wandering folk.” What does this mean to me? Well, I am a descendant of migrants, and a migrant myself. Over the years I have often found myself in the position of the visitor, the outsider, the other. With this knowledge and quiet observation of everyday life around me, I interweave my stories and stories of the land where I presently live (Seville, Spain 2006-2017, Cambridge UK since 2017).

Being on the move, without a permanent studio has meant that the studio has become a state of mind rather than a physical space. Embracing this nomadic approach, I began a relationship with a local school where I created a pop-up art studio once a week for a period of about 8 months. I was developing drawings for an exhibition of my work in New Zealand. Children were invited to come and draw with me. They drew beside me and even on my work sometimes.

In 2020 I was about to embark on an audiovisual project working at a pop-up studio in a community hall where parents and children would gather once a week. The theme was Migration Stories. This project was curtailed with the onset of the pandemic, but that ddn’t hold me back for long!

In 2021, resulting from the pandemic, another audiovisual project took place outside our gate with the help of neighbours’ children and some local high-school music students called Stories from the Deep Blue. But what has become my central work that developed, almost while I wasn’t looking, was a story I had begun to draw and write for a neighbours daughter as a form of entertainment during the winter lockdown of 2020- 2021. I was telling the story to my children and then sharing it in a written letter for her.  The story was later revisited and took the form of a webcomic that I shared with friends over winter just for fun. But the story wouldn’t go away. It kept asking to be deepened. Soon the webcomic drawings became the base of an installation for the July Cambridge Open Studios in 2021.

At that point, the graphic novel became the obvious next step. By late 2021, I had begun working on this project.  The story is based on research that I have done that stretches back 20 years.

Emma Louise Pratt (9)

Education

Present: Life, curiosity and play.

 

 

2008: Master in Programming and Web Design, Spain

 

 

2006: Portrait painting under the tutelage of Seville Painter Meña Morillas, Spain

 

 

2000: Landscape painting under the tutelage of Seville Painter Paco Broca, Spain

 

 

1999: Cambridge CELTA, Seville, Spain

 

 

1995: Post Graduate Diploma in Museum Studies ( Equivalent of present Master) Massey University, Palmerston North New Zealand

 

 

1991 – 1994: Ilam School of Fine Art Canterbury University, Christchurch New Zealand

Projects, Collaborations, Presentations, Performance, Workshops & Exhibitions

July 2021: Cambridge Open Studios

Exhibition and workshop drop-in space, Cambridge, UK

July 2020: Cambridge Open Windows

Citywide Lockdown Exhibition, Cambridge, UK

 

Jan – March 2020: Migration Stories Project

In collaboration with HonC!, community project gathering and responding to migration stories of our community. Paused during the pandemic.

October 2019: Ways of Seeing: Drawing as a Pathway to Deeper Thinking

Image Conference, Brussels

 

August 2019: New Work on Paper

Whitespace Contemporary Art, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

April 2019: Workshop: Ways of Seeing: Drawing as a Pathway to Deeper Thinking

IATEFL Conference, Liverpool, UK

 

October 2018 to present: Artists in Schools Project and Artist Residency

Fawcett Primary School, Cambridge, UK

 

October 2018: Athens Image Conference Workshop

Athens, Greece

 

April 2018: A Workshop in Three Acts & Artist in Residence

Hilton and Brighton Centre, IATEFL International Conference, Brighton, United Kingdom

 

July 2017: Infinity Has No Centre: New Work

Whitespace Contemporary Art, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

December 2016: Cinco Años

Group Show at Wabi Sabi Gallery, Seville, Spain

 

November 29 2016: Paintings

Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

October 2016: The Image Conference: Talk: Artists in Schools for Language Learning

Malta

 

May 2016: Colegio Beaterio de la Santisima Trinidad: Artists in Schools for Language Learning Project

Seville, Spain

 

November 2015: Group Show

Arusha Gallery at the Edinburgh Art Fair, Edinburgh, UK

 

October 2015: Innovate ELT Conference: Talk: Building Community for Teacher Development

Barcelona, Spain

 

May 2015: Group Show

Arusha Gallery, Edinburgh, UK

 

April 2015: Nada en Común

Group Show at Wabi Sabi Gallery, Seville, Spain

 

October 2014: Learning Technology SIG: Talk: Reflections on Building an Online Course and Social Learning

Dublin, Ireland

 

May 2014: Postcards from the Garden of the Moorish King

Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

August 2013: Witness

Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

August 2012: Irene Ferguson and Emma Pratt: Witness

Hastings City Art Gallery www.hastingscityartgallery.co.nz New Zealand

 

August 2010: Look up Kathie Visual Work and Monologue

Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

August 2008: 40 Day Visual Work, Video, Audio and Spoken Works

GNS Science, Lower Hutt Whitespace Gallery, Auckland www.whitespace.co.nz New Zealand

 

November 2007 -present: Christmas Group Shows

Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz Auckland, New Zealand

 

October, November 2007: Work from the Sanlucar Residency: Whakariuka nga Manu Inquietas son las Aves

New Works Solo Exhibition The British Institute, Seville and Tartaneros4, Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain

 

September 2007: The Island Dweller New Works

Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz Auckland, New Zealand

 

August 2007: TJFA Celebrating 10 Years Group Show

Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand

 

May 2007: Group Show

Peter Rae Gallery Dunedin, New Zealand

 

August 2006: Elvis is a Go Man

Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz Auckland, New Zealand

 

October 2005: Ki a Te Popi

Whitespace Gallery www.whitespace.co.nz. Auckland, New Zealand

 

August 2005: Journey to the Mountain

Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand

 

March 2005: Stations of the Cross

St Andrews Presbyterian Church Palmerston North, New Zealand

 

October 2004: The Desert Road

Martinborough Gallery for Contemporary Art Martinborough, New Zealand

 

2003: Objects found on Shelves and Tables

McCormack Studio Gallery Wellington, New Zealand

 

2003: Interior

Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand

 

2002: Home Land

Taylor Jensen Gallery Palmerston North, New Zealand

 

2001: Tres Mujeres en el Ateneo Group show

Ateneo Seville, Spain

 

1995: Time Marking

Community Arts Centre Hastings, New Zealand