Wonderful-strong
PAST EXHIBITION
An Exhibition by Maxine Beneba Clarke
Tuesday 13 December 2022 – Thursday 16 March 2023
• Visit during opening hours • CS Gallery (193-201 Caroline Springs Blvd, Caroline Springs 3023)
Award-winning and best-selling author and illustrator Maxine Beneba Clarke shares a vivid array of intimate, hand-drawn watercolour illustrations from popular picture books, Black Lives Matter and Fashionista. Carrying a powerful message of Black Love for young African diaspora families, this exhibition provides a gentle visual narrative for all children to understand the Black Lives Matter movement, and to revel in joyful freedom of expression in Black and inclusive fashion. This bright and impactful collection of artworks celebrates black identities, and explores how children of colour can be supported to hold and reclaim power for themselves and their communities.
This family-friendly exhibition for all ages features original illustrations that will be shown for the very first time at CS Gallery.
About Maxine Beneba Clarke
Maxine Beneba Clarke is a widely published Australian writer and illustrator of Afro-Caribbean descent. Maxine's short fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been published in numerous publications including Overland, The Age, Meanjin, The Saturday Paper and The Big Issue. Her critically acclaimed short fiction collection Foreign Soil won the ABIA for Literary Fiction Book of the Year 2015 and the 2015 Indie Book Award for Debut Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Matt Richell Award for New Writing at the 2015 ABIAs and the 2015 Stella Prize. She was also named as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Novelists for 2015.
Maxine has published three poetry collections including Carrying the World, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry 2017 and was shortlisted for the Colin Roderick Award. The Hate Race, a memoir about growing up black in Australia won the NSW Premier's Literary Award Multicultural NSW Award 2017 and was shortlisted for an ABIA, an Indie Award, the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and Stella Prize. The Patchwork Bike, Maxine's first picture book with Van T. Rudd was a CBCA Honour Book for 2017.
Her children's books include Wide, Big World, Fashionista and When We Say Black Lives Matter.
Image Gallery
Image Credit: MAXINE BENEBA CLARKE Fashionista Page 12, 2018 | Published by Hachette Australia Watercolour pencil and magazine collage on textured cardstock 22.8cm x 30.6cm Courtesy of the artist.