MICHAEL PRETTYMAN
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Micheal Prettyman

Michael Prettyman

I have to render the world in order to understand it.
Picture
Welcome. This website is dedicated to a body of work produced at the Harvard Divinity School between 2013 and 2016. The paintings, photographs and sculptures are reactions to the formal study of theology and comparative religion, and culminate a lifelong fascination with the areas where art and religion overlap. After years of formal academic study, (and more importantly, just living life) I have become  convinced that the practice of art making is itself a religious activity, as is the viewing of it. The lines between what we regard as sacred and secular, in life and art, become blurred. I do not have to be in a church to commune with what is sacred in this world.  The sacred, mythological past need not be inaccessible to us- it is at our fingertips because it is within us, and if we can find it we can find what it is that binds us all together.It is only through art making I am able understand these realities in an immediate way that has some blood and immediacy in it- it is my hope that you can see it. The viewer completes the work. Without you these pieces don't exist. It can be said that when you see them for the first time, it is the first time they are seen at all. It is as if, through your eyes, these paintings and sculptures are being born, over and over again. 


SHALL WE?
Copyright 2015 by Michael Prettyman
Michael@prettymanprettyman.com
  • Home
  • About
  • Sculpture
  • Video
  • Painting
  • Academic Projects
  • Contact
  • New Painting
  • Commissioned and Public Art