2020 Agassi Prize awarded to Olivia Pratt, MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking student

Congratulations to MA Multidisciplinary Printmaking student Olivia Pratt who has been awarded the 2020 Agassi Prize by the Centre for Fine Print Research for her publication From a Distance Most Things Look Beautiful

Olivia’s words: Although the aesthetic and subject of my work has changed considerably compared to the start of the MA, at the core the inspiration has remained the same. Books and reading are primarily where my ideas originate from. The concept that inspires me is that when you read fiction, you visualise your own version of the settings and the events taking place. And that vision is unique and your own. It is the images I create in my head when reading that mostly inform my work. The fiction that I find most inspiring is translated novels, particularly those from Japan or Korea. What unifies my taste in fiction is often a sense of a ‘still’ setting including lengthy descriptions of the everyday such as the layout of an apartment or a plate of food. In particular the works of Haruki Murakami which often contain repetitive themes and the surreal juxtaposed within the everyday. As well as this, the museum has always been a fascination and I’ve been able to spend this MA discovering what it is about it that interests me. The curation and the display of the artefacts is, in a way, a form of storytelling.

You can watch a video of the publication: From a Distance Most Things Look Beautiful at http://oliviapratt.co.uk