Hal pratt
At age 6 Hal Pratt wanted to be a landscape artist like his uncle Douglas Pratt but his mother steered him towards architecture as a more practical future. A career as a practising architect kept alive his interest in drawing. The design of new building for an art centre in central Sydney was the highlight of his architectural career. For some years he also drew and painted in the John Ogburn Studio in Sydney and exhibited oils in group shows at the associated Harrington St. Gallery.
At age 55 he moved into photography with solo exhibitions of abstract “painterly” works at three NSW Public art galleries: Wollongong, Orange and Manly. The State Library of NSW contracted Hal to photograph every grain silo across NSW for their archives, a 7 year project.
Hal began seriously drawing and painting full time about 10 years ago. Every year he has joined a painting camp at different locations around Alice Springs and the Macdonnell Ranges concentrating on drawing and painting en plein air and developing work in his Thirroul studio, south of Sydney. Graphite pencil and watercolour are his favoured media especially suited to the dry interior, one medium often complimenting the other. He also draws and paints his local coastal country.
Hal has been selected for several drawing, watercolour and painting prizes and exhibitions in recent years and has sold work to private collections.
The inspiration for the painting for this exhibition is the evocative landscape in and around the Macdonnell Ranges in Central Australia. Painting from first hand experience at camps were later developed in the artist’s Thirroul studio.
Hal Pratt has accepted the challenge of painting Namatjira’s country using his favoured medium – watercolour. The inability to rework watercolour is testing enough but the real challenge is to find one’s own interpretation of this unique landscape especially as it was so miraculously captured in Namatjira’s paintings.
At age 55 he moved into photography with solo exhibitions of abstract “painterly” works at three NSW Public art galleries: Wollongong, Orange and Manly. The State Library of NSW contracted Hal to photograph every grain silo across NSW for their archives, a 7 year project.
Hal began seriously drawing and painting full time about 10 years ago. Every year he has joined a painting camp at different locations around Alice Springs and the Macdonnell Ranges concentrating on drawing and painting en plein air and developing work in his Thirroul studio, south of Sydney. Graphite pencil and watercolour are his favoured media especially suited to the dry interior, one medium often complimenting the other. He also draws and paints his local coastal country.
Hal has been selected for several drawing, watercolour and painting prizes and exhibitions in recent years and has sold work to private collections.
The inspiration for the painting for this exhibition is the evocative landscape in and around the Macdonnell Ranges in Central Australia. Painting from first hand experience at camps were later developed in the artist’s Thirroul studio.
Hal Pratt has accepted the challenge of painting Namatjira’s country using his favoured medium – watercolour. The inability to rework watercolour is testing enough but the real challenge is to find one’s own interpretation of this unique landscape especially as it was so miraculously captured in Namatjira’s paintings.
