Every Heart Sings

Patricia Piccinini is an award-winning artist who loves exploring the amazing connections between humans and animals. Published by the National Gallery of Australia, Every Heart Sings is her first children's book.

I grew up in Canberra and I first realised I wanted to be an artist when I visited the National Gallery of Australia as a teenager. I now live and work in Melbourne and, as an artist, I am interested in what it means to be alive in the present day. I hope to create a world somewhere between the one we know and one that is almost upon us, and to focus on the emotional lives of the new creatures that might emerge. I am interested in our relationships with them and with nature.

I work with a studio of people to help make my work, starting with my drawings and ending up with a sculpture, or a video or even a hot air balloon. Skywhalepapa 2020 is a work that continues my relationship with the people of Canberra that began with the Skywhale in 2013. Together they form a skywhale family that will take to the air over Canberra and go on to explore the country and the world.

Every Heart Sings is a project that talks about nature, family, evolution, care and wonder. They float into our lives to make us smile and think.