Biography
Prilla Smith Brackett has been working professionally as a painter
for 28 years. Over the years, she has worked with landscape in a
conceptual way, in that she tends to use landscape to say more than a
description of a place.
In 2005 Brackett and painter son, Matt Brackett, presented
“Complex Conversations: A Place Apart,” at the Art Complex Museum in
Duxbury, MA, paintings and monoprints showing the convergence of
their work over the loss of their ancestral home. Solo exhibitions have included the 2002 show,
“Uncertain Balance,” at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC, and an
exhibition,“Remnants: Ancient Forests & City Trees” which traveled to 8 venues in ME, VA, NH, PA,
MA, CT, TN, NY 1999 – 2001. Brackett’s paintings were included in New American Painting #26, a
juried exhibition in print.
Her honors include 2001, 2003, 2007, & 2009 residencies at the Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts, a 1998 award & residency at the Ucross Foundation, 1997 & 1998 residencies at the
Ragdale Foundation, a 1994 residency at the Millay Colony for the Arts, a 1992 Earthwatch Artist
award in Madagascar, a 1989-90 fellowship in painting at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College,
now the Radcliffe Institute, and a 1990 travel grant to Costa Rica. In 2008 the publication of "Mrs.
Ramsey's Knee: Poems by Idris Anderson" featured one of Brackett's paintings in color on the cover.
With social science degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the University of California/Berkeley,
Brackett earned her MFA in drawing & painting from the University of Nebraska/Lincoln. In addition
to a solo exhibition at DeCordova Museum & Sculpture Park (MA), Brackett has shown at the Portland
Museum of Art (ME), Ashville Art Museum (NC), Lyman Allen Museum (CT),
Lancaster Museum of Art (PA), Arnot Art Museum (NY), Fitchburg Art
Museum (MA), Bershire Museum (MA) and in two venues at the 1995 Beijing
UN 4th World Conference on Women.
Her work is in public and private collections, such as the Fogg Art
Museum of Harvard University Museums, DeCordova Museum, Art in US
Embassies Program, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Radcliffe
College, Boston Public Library, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, E. F. Hutton, Fidelity Corporation,
Honeywell, and Shell Oil in the USA, Japan, and Europe.
Artist's Statement
For over 17 years, I have been approaching landscape in a conceptual way, in that I use
landscape to say more than a description of a place. The series “Remnants: Ancient Forests & City
Trees,” for example, emphasized the intersection of the natural and man-made worlds through
juxtaposition and fragmentation of images.
Since then I’ve developed a more contemplative approach. For example, in the “Along the Path”
work I commented on the transience and interconnectedness of natural elements, allowing viewers
to make their own associations. A subsequent series of monoprints and paintings explored the
communion of an old family house, now sold, with the trees surrounding it. From the sleeping porch,
looking out to water and trees, the membrane between inside and outside almost dissolves.
I have recently been exploring the intermingling of the domestic man-made with the natural, in
both monoprints and mixed media paintings on panel. I’ve returned to forest images but have
incorporated a bed or a chair, drawn from furniture that was in the old house. When furniture from a
previous era is placed in a forest I find such narrative uncertainty fascinating.
In earlier work in this series I made the furniture from collaged, semi-opaque rice paper through
which one can see the forest underneath. Now, I paint rather than collage the furniture. I
experiment with the furniture's transparency and its location in the forest: floating above, embedded
within, or buried below. My printmaking has strongly influenced these new works. In the paintings
I’m layering transparent colors with the (often surprising) color results found in my monoprints,
"printing" with paint, and using paint applied linearly, influenced by small drypoint marks.
Forests have played a large role in our histories. They have given us raw material and air
cleansed of carbon dioxide. They have long been scary places on civilization's edge, of refuge and
hidden secrets, of solace and spirituality, of make-believe. I tap into such associations. I hope to
create spaces where the imagination can wander and memory can surface.
Availability & Pricing
Most of the work on this site is available for purchase. For work on paper prices range from $150 to
$2500. For oil and mixed media on canvas or panel the range is from $600 to $10,000. For specific
prices, contact me.
Giclée limited edition prints
Not to be confused with my hand-made, unique prints, these giclée prints are museum quality prints
on paper, made to reproduce several of my large, sold paintings. They are made digitally by a high-
end fine arts printer and are available in two sizes.
Click here to see the prints.