Events
No matter your tastes, there are a number of events coming up in the region that you are sure to be interested in:
Bendigo Writer’s Festival Exhibition - Look: an exhibition of picture book art by Freya Blackwood
Arts Culture and Music At La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre
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From July 20, to August 14, 2016
10:00am - 5:00pm
La Trobe University Visual Arts Centre
03 5441 8724
Freya Blackwood burst onto the Australian publishing scene when illustrations for her first book, Two Summers (2003) written by John Heffernan, won her the Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) 2004 Crichton Award. This national award recognizes and encourages new talent in the field of Australian children’s book illustration, and is presented to an illustrator who is judged to be the best new illustrator published in the previous calendar year. Having illustrated more than two-dozen books Blackwood has, in a relatively short career, secured her place as one of the best known and most highly awarded Australian illustrators.
Her numerous books have either been shortlisted, received honour book awards or won categories in the CBCA’s Book of the Year Awards. This includes in 2015 when three of her books won awards across three of four fiction categories: Go to Sleep, Jessie! (by Libby Gleeson), The Cleo Stories: The Necklace and the Present (by Libby Gleeson) and My Two Blankets (by Irena Kobald) – this is the first time in the award’s history that one illustrator has won in three categories in the same year. In 2010 Blackwood won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal, the UK’s highest award for illustration. She is one of only three Australian illustrators ever to have won this award.
This exhibition traces Freya Blackwood’s career in picture book illustration and provides insight into the way she works and the creative decisions she makes. The catalogue is designed to be read in conjunction with the exhibition and has been written to encourage deeper interaction with and appreciation of Blackwood’s original works.
An event to mark this Bendigo Writers Festival exhibition will be held on Thursday 11 August at 6pm and Sarah Mayor Cox, Lecturer in Literacy, Children's & Young Adult Literature at La Trobe University will present the opening remarks. This event is open to the public and all are welcome. Special thanks to the La Trobe University Bendigo Alumni Association for co-sponsoring this event.