New technologies and a shrinking publishing landscape have enabled writers to take the publishing process into their own hands. Emerging artists, Isaac du Toit and Alex Rundle-Keswick share their experiences creating picture books and books as art objects.
Isaac du Toit is a young artist, author and illustrator of picture books. Since 2020 du Toit has been increasingly experimenting with the medium of handmade mixed-media dioramas in his art and illustration. His self-published nonfiction picture book, Alice and the Strange Bird is a finalist for the Russell Clark Award for Illustration in the 2025 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults. In 2024 he won an award in the Tertiary Student Artist category at the inaugural Toi MAHARA Young Artists Exhibition.
Alex Rundle-Keswick is a Kāpiti based artist, who studied game art and design. They are passionate about storytelling in a multitude of mediums, with a focus on character illustrations as well as dabbling in binding notebooks. Recently they have started exploring making art in the shape of books and expanding on illustrations in three-dimensional space. The first of these works, The Eye of the Storm, was displayed in the Toi Mahara Young Artists exhibition 2024.
Limited places. Drop into the gallery or rsvp via Bookmark Kāpiti