Julie Barratt, Michelle Black shortlisted for national artists' book award

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Artspace Mackay’s Libris Awards are an annual celebration of the wildly diverse artform that is the artists’ book.

Among the shortlist for this year’s prize are some familiar names from the Rockhampton-region art scene, Julie Milner Barratt and Michelle Black.

Julie, who’s currently in Finland because she was there for an artists’ residency when everything shut down due to coronavirus, was picked for her work The Isolation Files.

Michelle’s shortlisted work is The Big One: 604mm in 96 hours, part of a series of experimental works inspired by Rockhampton’s history for the ReCollections exhibition.

Here’s a video from that original exhibition showing Michelle’s artist books, made with a mix of techniques from embroidery to printing with Fitzroy River mud:

Artist books are an artform close to Artspace Mackay’s heart, and they’ve been supporting the medium since they opened in 2003. The Libris Awards play a significant role in showcasing the very latest and best in contemporary artists’ book practice in Australia.

Both Julie and Michelle are finalists in the National Artists’ Book Awards category, an acquisitive award with a $7,000 prize for the overall winner.

There is no date set yet for the announcement of winners or the exhibition, for obvious virus-related reasons But for more artist book goodness, the illustrated catalogue of this year’s Libris Awards will be available online through Artspace Mackay from May 1.

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