Valerie Pragnell, 64, one of the most original and important artists in Scotland to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s
Shrike!
05-Sep-06
Valerie Pragnell
Environmental sculptor, artist and basket maker
Born: 25 August, 1942, in Worthing, Sussex.
Died: 29 August, 2006, in Dumfries, aged 64.
VALERIE Pragnell, although English by birth, adopted Scotland as her
home and became one of the most original and important artists to
emerge in the 1980s and 1990s. Her work focused on the increasingly
fragile relationship humans have with the natural world. From her home
in Glasgow and her studio at Nisbet, in the Borders, she produced
powerful work that made people think.
Born in Worthing, she pursued a variety of jobs in London and Paris in
her twenties including time spent as a chef. She and her family moved
to Glasgow in 1972 and from 1981-5 she studied in the Mural and
Stained Glass Department at Glasgow School of Art. She took part in
"British Artists in Glass" in 1986 at Liberty's in London. She soon
abandoned glass but light and colour was often incorporated into her
later work. An example of this was the use of orange and blue nylon
fishing twines which evoked the shorelines she loved to scour for
materials.
She created work from natural materials such as bark, branches, mud,
moss, thorns, seeds and leaves often weaving them into pod-like forms.
Many of these alluded to fertility, birth and the sheer beauty of
simple materials.
She quickly gained exhibition invitations and critical acclaim, and in
1987 was elected a professional member of the Scottish Society of
Artists. In 1989, Pragnell was one of the artists represented in the
critically acclaimed "Scottish Art Since 1900" exhibition organised by
the National Galleries of Scotland. Very much a "who's who" of
20th-century Scottish art, it was Pragnell's specially commissioned
work Storm that first confronted the visitor to this exhibition.
Twelve Seasons, produced in 1996, for the Borders Museum service, was
a beautifully poetic piece of work that used photography, natural and
found material, written words and her own made items to construct a
three-dimensional diary of the changing seasons in the Scottish
Borders. So successful was this body of work with the public that it
went on an extended tour throughout the UK lasting almost two years.
Twelve Seasons along with Visual Diary is now part of the Scottish
National Curriculum. Her ability to communicate directly was
underlined by her selection as artist in residence at the 1998 Glasgow
Garden Festival.
Pragnell was an important figure in the Scottish Basketmakers' Circle.
"Making Weaves", a touring exhibition organised by the National
Museums of Scotland in 1999, exposed the art of basket making in
Scotland to a much greater public audience and marked the growing
importance of many of the artists taking part, Pragnell key among
them. Her work now graces collections all over the world including the
Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Contemporary Arts
Society, London. Her baskets have also been bought by collectors at
Sotheby's, London.
In 2004, Pragnell inspired the setting up of the "Big Willow" project
undertaken on the Brahan Estate, near Marybank in Ross-shire.
Pragnell collaborated on many public commissions throughout Britain
for organisations such as Sustrans (instigator of the National Cycle
Network) with a sculpture entitled Sleeper Awake with Keith MacDonald,
situated near Kilbirnie Loch. For Scottish Natural Heritage at Knockan
Crag, one of Europe's most important geological sites, Pragnell
completed Knockan Wall with Bruce Shelley. Possibly one of Pragnell's
most powerful works is Listening Place at South Lochboisdale, South
Uist. It consists of a series of seats cast from an original tractor
seat belonging to a local crofter. These are set into a curved wall
that incorporates bronze casts of poems by local bards Donald
MacDonald and Donald J MacDonald in Gaelic with translations in
English. The sculpture invites the visitor to sit and contemplate in
this remote and beautiful spot. This piece draws together place,
material, local people and culture in a harmonious way. Pragnell had
the rare ability to place a piece of sculpture in a landscape as if it
was a natural part of it rather than an intruder.
Her work was often aimed at children. She completed public commissions
at Dobcross village school in Oldham, Lancashire in 1995 and Mossbank
school in Shetland in 2000. At the many and varied exhibitions
Pragnell took part in, children could be seen exploring her woven
tunnels, clambering into her willow "pods" and she ran workshops that
encouraged children to use the natural materials around them. Shrieks
of delight are heard daily at Harestanes Countryside Visitors Centre,
in the Scottish Borders, as children make a beeline for her thatched
shelter with its woven willow walls and simple perimeter bench
seating. Inside is a chapel-like experience similar to those gained in
the small early Christian cells that survive on some of the remoter
Scottish islands. Very much a sceptic when it came to conventional
religion, Pragnell was nevertheless deeply spiritual and this came
through in her work.
Pragnell travelled as her reputation spread beyond Scotland. She
visited Japan in 1992, supported by the British Council, completing an
installation and exhibition with Maseo Ueno at Miyoshi Village, in
Chiba prefecture, west of Tokyo. She was greatly influenced by Japan
which she revisited in 1997. Pragnell also undertook site specific
work in Sweden, Finland, Belgium and Germany. She made several trips
to the United States where appreciation of her work was gathering
force before her untimely death.
Valerie nursed her terminally ill husband, Ian, who died in 2004. This
was followed by the death of her mother early this year and she then
succumbed to her own tragic illness after a brave fight. She is
survived by two daughters and two grandchildren.
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