Jerwood Painting Prize 2001

Winner of the £30,000 prize selected by Judith Collins, Sacha Craddock, Declan McGonagle, John Spurling and Wilf Weeks.
This exhibition was significant in its juxtaposition of three painters from differing generations. It was concerned with how each artist set out to pre-determine the process for each painting from the outset. This included Lasker’s use of projected doodles, Heron’s jigsaw pieces which relied on building on an initial gesture; and Pratt’s distinctive ‘splash’ that initiates each piece and predestines the direction of the painting. The exhibition considered the differing approaches to pre-programming process in painting over time and era, and mapped the influences across the generations.

Pratt’s paintings included in the exhibition deepened the enquiry into the diagrammatic and drawn element in her work and the generation of imagery through a build-up of drawn lines. The paintings deployed pioneering techniques, where the colours and materials mimicked each other and swapped places, for example, white paint as a ground made a raw canvas 'splash-shape' appear as a positive figure, instead of an omission. Paint was also used to quote other materials - glossy white top coats of oil paint performed as primer and the build-up of multi-coloured oil-paint layers slunk back as shadows.

Pratt gave an artist’s talk on her methods and approach to painting in the context of the exhibition, to a gallery audience of peers on 21 February 2006. A discussion on her research with Gallery Director, Stephen Foster, was podcast and published on John Hansard Gallery website. The John Hansard Gallery is supported by International Arts on Campus, Arts Council Engalnd and the University of Southampton.