Livingstone Pratt’s “Genesis: The beginning of souls in time” is the first solo project to occupy the Project Space since mid-2015. It showcases the birth of this world and humanity through a deep spiritual investigation. Pratt engages with abstraction, light, colour and motion to bring together a narrative that we all intrinsically know given the context of our socialisation and the history and current status of religiousness throughout The Bahamas, the wider Caribbean and most of the Christian world. He, however, moves beyond the tropes and doctrine of Genesis to manifest an idea of how the spiritual realm and creation narrative works within material, form and media.

Inspired by the iconic story that we came to know during our formative years, Pratt takes us on a sprawling look at the largeness of the birth of the universe and humanity. Using colour fields splattered with dark rich hues, he manages to evoke the expansive and transcendent nature of energies and life.

Firmament, ocean, landscape, forest and human form collide with intrigue. In the collection human form is placed secondary to nature; colour fields are splashed with white lines of hope, and out of this we see the merger of nature and humanity. The agency of the human being arises through the progression of days and suddenly human engagement with another, their labour and the terrain is unified.

The arc of Pratt’s narrative engagement in conjunction with biblical references is enchanting, rich and generous. His lively palette speaks about beauty, faith and the strength of humanity. His humility and demeanour as an artist refresh the reading of this faith-based work as he is moved by his deepest passion. Pratt, together with writer and poet Victoria Sarne, has crafted an intimate moment of vulnerable exchange where the edges of each painting gain a new kind of life; where inspiration and moments of looking on the inside to extract comprehension, falls divinely on canvas.

Biography

Livingstone Pratt is a self-taught artist; he attended R.M. Bailey Senior High School before graduating in 1976 and continued his education at The College of The Bahamas where he studied design and art. He was fortunate to have more than one mentor to guide his growth as an artist although Jim Whitehead and Macushla Hazlewood were the most influential.

Pratt’s artistic ability informs his design skills and he has had a long term business relationship with John Bull being solely responsible for the design elements in all their stores. Livingstone Pratt has had several exhibitions both at home and abroad, including the Bahamas Art Gallery on West Bay Street, Central Bank Art Gallery, St. Paul’s Church Lyford Cay and the Bahamas National Trust. International shows included an exhibition in Detroit and London in 1999. Pratt’s work can be found in the collections of Dawn Davies and the D’Aguilar Art Foundation. Livingstone Pratt has been working on this body of work “Genesis: The beginning of souls in time”, for the past 18 months and is now preparing a new series of work, as yet un-named, executed entirely in pencil and charcoal.