Ellen Ferrier is an installation based artist in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. Exploring the possibilities of traditional and emergent sustainable materials and technologies, she creates speculative objects and architectures as propositions for a future built on an ethics of care, connection and reciprocity. Ferrier will use the $10,000 scholarship to fund material investigations and fabrication of her work for Cementa24 - an immersive installation featuring experimental eco-cements made with problematic plant species for Kandos, a town established and made famous for its cement production. 

Juanita McLauchlan is a Gamilaraay woman living on Wiradjuri country in Wagga Wagga.  McLauchlan's new body of work drawing upon her Gamilaraay identity and family history to explore family connections through body adornment. The result is a major solo exhibition at Wagga Wagga Gallery in May 2023.

An experienced printmaker McLauchlan's proposal involved developing ideas and techniques incorporating textiles and sculpture to find new ways to explore her Aboriginal heritage through her practice.

Debbie Taylor-Worley is a Gamillaraay woman originally from north-west NSW and now based on the Tweed Coast. Her practice ranges from works on paper, canvas and ceramics with an emphasis on utilising natural pigments, dyes, ocean water, ochres and resins. Driven to reconnect with her heritage after the birth of her daughters, Taylor-Worley’s artwork honours the powerful carved trees (dendroglyph) of her Country, many of which have been destroyed in the colonial pursuit of agricultural land. 

Image: Debbie Taylor-Worley, Beyond Gavrinis, 2018, installation view. Canvas and mixed media (100x180) clay, sand. Photo by Andrew Willis.

Dale Collier is based in Newcastle, one of Australia's largest port cities with train and songlines escalating all the way back out through red dirt country. He works across all disciplines of sound video, performance, and installations while examining contemporary roles of First Nations artist, activist, and ally.

Dr Fiona Foley is a leading contemporary Australian artist with a practice encompassing painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, mixed-media work, found objects and installation to examine and dismantle historical stereotypes. Fiona will use the $10,000 scholarship to travel to her traditional Badtjala country surrounding Hervey Bay and Fraser Island to create a new series of gouache paintings on watercolour paper.

Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig with their children Sascha and Jack collaborate using photography, video, textiles, sculpture and found objects to look at human / environment relationships and the idea of artist as both maker and curator.

Duke Albada is a multi-disciplinary artist with a focus on socially engaged practice. Her work explores relationships within communities, surveying the social and cultural identity in relation to place.

Harrie Fasher is an Australian artist whose sculptures explore the horse and its relationship to humans on a physical, historical and mythological level. Harrie is an accomplished equestrian athlete giving her the skill and experience required to describe the form and movement of the horse with attention to anatomical accuracy.

James Blackwell's artwork centres on themes of nature, silence, structure and meditation. Utilizing natural materials gathered from the Australian bush and other resources, he reconfigures the materials into grid-like formations often in a 3 dimensional manner with the use of textured and handmade papers as a support.

Encouragement Award - Rochelle Summerfield based on the NSW North Coast won a Windmill Encouragement Award in 2014. She creates images in new and mixed media of sassy women, exploring the female experience in suburbia and the Australian Bush.