Prilla Smith Brackett--Review and Essay excerpts
http://prillasmithbrackett.com
Prilla Smith Brackett's Marking a Year was the latest in the DeCordova Museum's New Work/
New England series. Beginning on the vernal equinox, or first day of spring, 1991, the Cambridge
Artist made a drawing for each day of the year based on some aspect of nature. (…) Although these
drawings at first appeared to be straight, visual transcriptions of the scene or object in front of the
artist, there were elements common to all: an interest in the lyric power of line, a fascination with
the process of growth, and often an expressive rendering of form. From the weeping beeches of
Mount Auburn Cemetery to the jungle vines of Costa Rica, tree, plant, flower, and vegetable forms
seemed to take on a life of their own, to burgeon and uncoil sinuously. One was reminded of
Cezanne's definition of art; “Painting from nature is not copying the objective, it is realizing one's
sensations.”
Alicia Craig Faxon, Art New England, June/July 1994
She is a landscape painter with a purpose. For the past decade the work of Prilla Smith Brackett
has emphasized contrast: unspoiled old-growth forests are depicted along with evidence of modern-
day environmental decline. She is interested in realistic depiction and in using materials and
techniques to bring out her ecological message.
William Zimmer, New York Times, Sunday, December 24, 2000, CT
Brackett loves trees. You can see that in the way her lines caress roots and branches; in the way
even small details light her imagination. She forces us to look at the details, as well, in the way she
composes and breaks apart each work. “Silent Striving” groups small paintings into a grid,
interspersing details from old-growth forests with details of urban trees: the way a root burrows
beneath a sidewalk; the skeletal stretch of dead branches into lake water. The grid of paintings is
filled with intersections – those in its structure and those within the works of crossed branches and
cast shadows. The result is both a sense of network and a sense of fracture....They all tell the same,
never ending story – city tree and country tree, noble and gnarled in their persistence despite our
efforts to crowd them out.
Cate McQuiad, The Boston Globe, Thursday, September 2, 2000
Brackett’s most recent work are triptychs expressing a more peaceful co-existence of the
human and the natural. The side images were inspired by views of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the
central images by scenes around Brackett’s home in Cambridge, Mass. The sense of decay and
forceful intrusion – so visible in the earlier Remnants series – is no longer apparent, as the very
simple architecture of the urban environment enhances the dignity and intricate beauty of
trees...Although her theme is human intervention, we get the sense that nature will withstand
many indignities, offering us time to rethink the repercussions of our actions.
Janis Tomlinson, National Academy of Sciences exhibition brochure, Fall 2002
Prilla Smith Brackett, well respected for her paintings of landscape, chooses to explore the interaction
of parts of the house with the landscape, as seen from indoors looking out. We are invited to observe
trees, windows, chairs and beds that are still, silent and empty. She has made landscape and
architecture the referent for her memories and those of her family. In Prilla’s work, landscape is
captured and framed by the squares and angles of the house. These fragmented images of landscape
emphasize how memories become incomplete. She often applies layers of translucent color, almost
like scrims, to her paintings. These ghost-like areas become metaphors for memories that overlap
and weave into each other and are difficult to grasp completely.
Catherine Mayes, The Art Complex Museum exhibition brochure, January 2005
Mixed media artist Prilla Smith Brackett intends her translucent, conceptual landscape images to
be anything but a literal delineation of a familiar place. This show, which contains 28 or her artworks,
is an ephemeral invitation for viewers to indulge in their own contemplation; her contextual
narrative is revealingly personal, yet universal in appeal. (…) Brackett's personal vocabulary
poignantly reflects that which has come from the forest, with passing time, shall return to the forest
– that all things physical and spiritual shall reunite. (…) For this reviewer, “Places of the Heart” is
about the air we breathe, the soil we till, the trees, the horizon and what we think of life itself.
Franklin W. Liu, Artscope, Nov/Dec 2010
For over three decades, Prilla Smith Brackett has probed various landscapes to reveal hidden
beauty and hard truths. Her work celebrates nature and reminds us of its fragility in the face of
encroaching industrialism... Brackett animates her subjects with an emotional depth. Her latest
series, Dreams of Home, merges landscape with memory and man-made artifacts, heightening the
work’s associative power. The work exhibits a complexity derived from how Brackett seemingly
compresses time and realigns disparate experiences, suggesting overexposed negatives and
photographic cropping.
Michele Cohen, Proposal for “Fractured Views,” to be exhibited at DanforthArt 2015
Brackett’s body of work reaches its ultimate expression in her later monotypes and woodcuts. In the
prints, the woods fade into the background, as if turning into old wallpaper. Across the surface,
chairs, dressers and beds float as if part of a curious dream.
Brackett equates the woods — a vital part of the planet’s ecosystem — with human memories and
dreams. In an age when ice is melting, bees are dying and the planet is heating up, she poses the
question: Will the forest become just a memory, too? It’s a thought she leaves for viewers to
ponder. What’s left unsaid will linger long past this exhibit’s duration.
Debbie Hagen, The Forest and the Trees: Prilla Smith Brackett, Fractured Visions II, Seven Days,
9/30/15