Local artist publishes collection spanning career

FORT FRANCES—While her airplane art has appeared on numerous magazine covers, inside calendars, and reproduced as prints over the years, and continues to win awards, for the first time ever Cher Pruys has collected much of her work in a new book just released this month.
Called “The Art of Cher Pruys,” the hardcover 11” x 8.5” collector’s edition book contains more than 300 full-colour images of Pruys’ paintings spanning the past 16 years of her career.

In an interview Friday, Pruys said fans of her work have been asking for her to publish a coffee table book of her work some time, and she started working on it in earnest about a year ago.
“It’s been in the back of my mind to get moving on that project and get it done over the years. It just seemed like a good time,” she noted.
“Another one of my more recent paintings won a big award just this past year in a world competition, and I had another one that went on a magazine cover last month,” she added.
“I just thought this was a good time to bring the project to a close and get the book out.”
Pruys designed the book herself, finding time in her hectic painting schedule to pick out which images to include and lay it out.
“It was kind of fun. It was like doing a painting only in book-form,” she laughed. “I just didn’t have to sit down with a paint brush this time.”
Pruys said she did have to make some tough decision as to what paintings to include, which size they should be, and how they should be laid out within the book.
“I was pretty pleased with the final outcome,” she remarked.
Calling the book a “’landmark” in her career, Pruys said it was interesting for her to look back at her body of work.
“Going back, I had forgotten about a number of pieces I had done. It was kind of fun to go back into the archives and pull some of them out,” she said.
“It was also nice to see the development of myself as an artist over the past 16 years—it’s fun to look and see how far I’ve come in different areas and different subject matter and painting skills,” she admitted.
Pruys said the book contains more than 300 full-colour images, which represents about 65 percent of her work from over the years.
For those who might not be familiar with Pruys’ work, the majority of it is paintings of bush planes in Northwestern Ontario that have won over fans from across the world.
But Pruys said her new book also contains portraiture, wildlife, flowers, and much more.
“It was kind of fun for me to take a look at the scope of the work,” she noted. “A lot of people don’t realize that I paint everything; they associate me more with airplanes.
“I think people will be surprised by the scope of the work in there.”
While her new book marks a milestone, Pruys stressed she has no plans to slow down and continues to be very busy—whether she’s painting commercial work like magazine covers and private commissions, including murals.
The new book, which costs about $150, is available by calling Cher and Mark Pruys at 486-3613. It soon will be available online at www.artbycher.ca
(Fort Frances Times)