The 15th Art of Botanical Illustration 19 September – 31 December 2020

A Virtual Exhibition

This year the Friends will present the fifteenth biennial ‘The Art of Botanical Illustration’ Exhibition as a virtual exhibition. 

TABI as the exhibition is fondly known, will go ahead despite the uncertainty around restrictions due to COVID-19 because the Friends believe it is important to support the artists who loyally contribute to this exhibition. 

The exhibition is a sublime collection of some of the very best botanical illustration around the world and this year is represented by the ‘hero image’ of a Agapanthus Seed Head by Vicki Philipson, a long-term student of the Friends Botanical Art Program. 

Following the engagement of international artists in the Friends’ online botanical art classes during term 2, we hope to have greater contribution from international artists to further lift the profile of this popular exhibition.

Whilst we are unable to present this iconic exhibition in Domain House, TABI, one of Australia’s most prestigious botanical art exhibitions, will still be delivered at our normal highly professional standard in an online framework. A selection process will still take place and the prestigious Celia Rosser Award for Excellence will be awarded as usual. To be selected, the artist merit and scientific accuracy of the art work will be assessed.  

A benefit of the online presentation of TABI, is our ability to extend the duration of the exhibition with artwork displayed from 19 September – 31 December, making it also a perfect event for online Christmas shopping. 

We hope you will join us to support The Art of Botanical Illustration later this year. 

Applications for Artists

Applications for The Art of Botanical Illustration 2020 are now open. The closing date for entry and online submission of artwork is 9 August 2020 at 11.59pm. Artists must complete both the entry form and upload their high-resolution artwork to DropBox to complete the application in full. 

Artists can download the ‘Information for Artists’ which includes both the ‘conditions of entry’ and the ‘FAQ’s’ by visiting the exhibition page.  The link to the online entry form is also available on the Friends’ website.

The ‘Conditions of Entry’ includes several changes, due to the online delivery of the exhibition, therefore we suggest artists read the conditions of entry carefully. 

The selection of artwork based on the criteria outlined in the ‘Conditions of Entry’ will take place in August and successful artists will be notified on 1 September 2020 via email. 

Key Dates for Artists

9 August, 11.59pm                    Deadline for entry forms and images to be submitted

17 – 31 August                          Selection panel deliberates 

1 September                             Artists informed by email of results of selection process

19 Sep – 31 December               Exhibition live online

Launching our New Website and Membership Program

If you are reading your botanic news, you will have visited the Friends new website. It is modern, easy to read and navigate and we hope you love it. 

The new website came out of necessity to improve the user experience when booking events, renewing your membership, finding details about the next art exhibition or art classes, the opening hours of Plant Craft Cottage or our latest news. 

We are hope now you can find anything you could possibly want to know about the Friends and are able to book events and renew your membership easily. 

Coinciding with a new website, is the launch of our new membership program, TidyHQ. 

The use of TidyHQ was also born out of necessity to improve the user experience for our members and the staff and office volunteers who manage your memberships and event bookings. 

Using TidyHQ has several benefits for the Friends, including time and cost savings and as ‘Tidy’ is a Melbourne based company, support is local which is important when things aren’t quite working the way they should…not that we are expecting any issues. 

From now, all memberships will be processed via TidyHQ. Renewal letters will be automatically sent to you without staff or office volunteers doing anything. This, together with many other fabulous features will provide significant time savings for the office allowing us to concentrate on delivering other wonderful programs and initiatives for you. 

We hope you will take some time after you have read you Botanic News, to explore the website site and next time you need to renew your membership, we hope you will enjoy the simplicity of TidyHQ. 

Georgina and Jill

The Friends Office