GAYE
CHAPMAN
Gaye Chapman is an artist
of international standing, but generations of children in Australia
know her best for her many, many years (sixteen and counting!)
of illustrating for NSW School Magazine. Gaye has exhibited widely
throughout Australia and overseas, and has many major collections,
awards, prizes and exhibitions to her name including the Sulman,
Blake, Fleurieu, Kedumba and Waterhouse Natural History art prizes.
 |
|
Born
in Gilgandra, and growing up at Mendooran, Gaye's bush
childhood remains the inspiration for both her art work
and children's illustration. 2004 saw the publication
of Gaye's first children's picture book, Heart
of the Tiger (with Glenda Millard). Talking
about her work for this book Gaye commented, 'as a girl
I dreamed of a life full of travel, art and adventure.
I have sailed in an Indonesian fishing boat around the
Arafura Sea, jumped out of airplanes, designed posters
for the National Theatre in London, hitch-hiked through
the Sumatra, motor-biked across Java, lived with a hill-tribe
in Morocco and been artist-in-residence in a rainforest.
I use any materials at all to make a picture, including
real objects like mud, feathers and grass. I then cut
out my finished paintings and paste them down again in
new ways. I am very proud to have illustrated Heart
of the Tiger, it is about the things I care
for most: old age, childhood and hope for the future
of our green planet.'
|
In
2005 Gaye’s second picture, Breakfast with Buddha (with
Vashti Farrer) was released, followed by another collaboration
with Glenda Millard, Kaito’s Cloth. Gaye also collaborated
with Colin Thompson and 13 other illustrators to create the 2008
CBCA shortlisted picture book, Dust.
  
Gaye’s most recent publication is Little
Blue (2008). Although
Gaye has written for radio, television, advertising and also presented
as a performance poet, this is the first time she has written a
picture book. Writing her own story, she found the relationship
between it and the illustrations was clearer to her. This isn’t
to say the writing came easily. She made many drafts before she
was satisfied she ‘could say the most with the least words’.
After this she turned to the illustrations, which she wanted to
carry the greater part of the storytelling.
Gaye
hopes that Little Blue can spirit children away for a while.
She remembers losing
herself in beautiful books as a child, ‘my
eyes wandering through the pictures in my childhood books for hours,
noting every detail.’ She loves it when after giving a school
talk, children come up to talk to her and obviously know the illustrations
intimately. ‘It’s always a lovely warm surprise that
my own little studio world has sprouted through the door and gone
on into someone else’s world.’
Back
to Lateral Learning website
|
