The Big Frieze – Emma Yarlett

Welcome to the Understanding Christianity: Text Impact Connections Big Frieze!

It’s really big! 22cm high x 1260cm long – from Creation to Kingdom of God

Artist Emma Yarlett was commissioned to create a wall frieze to illustrate seven of the eight core concepts that are explored throughout the Understanding Christianity materials. Effectively, this presents a view of the ‘big story’ of the Bible – an artist’s response to the approach used in the Understanding Christianity materials.

The Big Frieze is designed to give teachers the opportunity to make pupils aware of the wider context of each concept, unit and text studied in the Understanding Christianity materials. Reminding pupils regularly of where a particular text occurs within the ‘big story’, by pointing it out on the Frieze, helps to build up a coherent understanding of the core concepts and the relationship between them.

The artwork illustrates these concepts, from Creation to Kingdom of God, presenting a Christian view of the Bible as more than a collection of different texts – one which has an overarching coherence and story.

THE ILLUSTRATOR

Emma Yarlett likes to paint, draw, collage, design, write, doodle, construct, invent, splatter and sketch.

She was born and raised in Leicester. Having nurtured a passion for art from an early age she went on to study illustration at University College Falmouth in Cornwall. Whilst there she began working as a freelance illustrator with projects such as The Bible: The Big Story published by RE Today / Christian Education, and in her third year was ‘Highly Commended’ in the Macmillan Prize for her book Sidney and his Shadow. After attending the Bologna Book Fair, she was offered her first book deal before graduating with a First Class Honours degree in 2011.

Emma’s first book, Sidney, Stella and the Moon, published by Templar, was long listed for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal 2014 and shortlisted for the Cambridge Read it Again 2014 Picture Book Awards. Her second book, Orion and the Dark, was nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal 2015 and was the winner of the English Association 4-7 Picture Book Award, May 2015! Emma’s third book, Poppy Pickle, was published internationally in 2015, and her fourth picture book, Nibbles; The Book Monster, was published in 2016 with already over 100,000 copies in circulation worldwide.