28 February 2024

Media Release

Regional Arts NSW proudly announces it will administer the prestigious Windmill Trust Scholarship for Regional NSW Artists. Established in 1997 in memory of artist Penny Meagher, this $10,000 scholarship aims to support visual artists from regional NSW in developing and presenting their work. Previously administered by the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA), the scholarship has supported over 30 artists statewide.

‘Regional NSW is rich with artistic talent and exciting work that needs to be recognised and celebrated,’ said Tracey Callinan, CEO of Regional Arts NSW. ‘The Windmill Trust Scholarship helps this happen, assisting regional artists with career development and opportunities. Regional Arts NSW is proud to be taking on the administration of the scholarship.’

Victoria Weekes from the Windmill Trust said, ‘the Trustees and Management Committee of the Windmill Trust Scholarship are proud of what the scholarship has been able to achieve so far in its 27 year history to support and inspire artists across regional NSW.

‘We are grateful for the ongoing support and guidance that NAVA has provided for so many years in administering and promoting the scholarship. We are excited about the future of the Windmill Trust Scholarship and look forward to partnering with Regional Arts NSW to continue grow its impact throughout the regions.’

Penelope Benton, Executive Director of NAVA said, ‘It has been a delight to administer this career-changing opportunity for so many years. Since its inception, the Windmill Trust Scholarship has provided over $160,000 in funding to support the artistic practices and professional development of regional artists. It plays a critical role in elevating the innovative work and practice emerging from the regions. I am honored to have facilitated this new partnership between the Windmill Trust and Regional Arts NSW and I am excited to see the scholarship grounded within a regionally focused organisation.’

The Windmill Trust Scholarship supports artists in various career aspects, including independent artistic research or practice, professional development, exhibiting and presenting work in new ways. Financial support encompasses studio rental, materials or labor costs, framing, space rental, promotion, artists’ fees, freight, installation, and documentation.

About Regional Arts NSW:
As the peak body and service agency for arts and cultural development in regional New South Wales (NSW), Regional Arts NSW leads the conversation, encourages collaboration, provides support and celebrates the achievements of the arts and cultural sector in regional NSW.
https://regionalartsnsw.com.au/

31 August 2020

NAVA Media Release

The Windmill Trust and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) congratulate Debbie Taylor-Worley announced as the recipient of the 23rd annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

Taylor-Worley will use the $10,000 scholarship for a practice-led research trip to visit significant sites between Tamworth and Walgett NSW, reconnecting on her Country with the places of her ancestors.

“The Windmill Scholarship allows me to take an extended research trip to Gamilaraay Country, my traditional country, in order to reconnect spiritually and literally to the places of my ancestors and my childhood,” said Debbie Taylor-Worley. “Having investigated places and spaces significant to my culture and personal memories, I will be creating artwork of the landscape, in the landscape and formed by the landscape.

“Thank you so much to NAVA, the Windmill Trust and the consideration of the selection panel for this wonderful opportunity.”

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. Her most recent ceramic works have been female figurines - abstracted and carved with designs inspired by the dendroglyphs - portraying the strength, integrity, power, resilience and enduring nurturing creativity of womanhood.

“Debbie Taylor-Worley's work is experimental and contains strong geometric patterns based on her Aboriginal forebears of the Gamillaraay nation,” said Dr Fiona Foley, 2018 Windmill Trust Scholarship recipient and one of this year’s assessors. “She is deserving of the Windmill Trust Scholarship at this stage of her career and this award will take her art practice to a new level of art-making on her traditional country.”

“We are all extremely proud to administer this important scholarship to Debbie Taylor-Worley, offering the necessary space and time to develop her career further as an artist, and to connect with and make work on Country,” said NAVA First Nations Research and Engagement Coordinator, Georgia Mokak.

“The NAVA team is so excited for her and eager to continue to watch her practice in the future!”

“Receiving an award like this can be pivotal to an artist's career. I'm thrilled for Debbie and look forward to seeing the impact of this experience on her work for years to come,” said Acting CEO, Penelope Benton.

“Presenting artists with this type of support really is one of the most rewarding parts of our work. I extend our warm appreciation to the Windmill Trust for this ongoing partnership.”

The Windmill Trust Scholarship was established in 1997 by Primrose Moss to honour her sister, artist and former Director of the Macquarie Galleries, the late Penny Meagher and is targeted at regional NSW artists.

The Windmill Trust Scholarship was born out of a desire to offer support to NSW artists living outside metropolitan areas to advance their careers. Over the past two decades, this initiative has supported and promoted the vast array of talent that exists in the diverse regional and remote areas of NSW, including Murrumbatemen, Moree, Orange, Wapengo and the Northern Rivers, supporting projects from a diverse range of media. Fifty incredibly strong applications were received this year from artists across the state, from Thurgoona to Wellington.

15 August 2019

The Windmill Trust and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) congratulate artist Dale Collier announced as the recipient of 22nd annual scholarship for regional NSW artists. Collier will use the $10,000 scholarship to create and present new experimental artwork in reciprocity and exchange within sites of key bio-spherical and environmental significance between Broken Hill and Newcastle for the 2020 Broken Hill Art Gallery exhibitions program and 2020 Broken Heel Festival.

Collier said today, "Upon receiving the news that my application to the 2019 Windmill Trust Scholarship was successful, I was overcome by the most ridiculous flood of happy tears. Being awarded this scholarship is an enormous affirmation of my current and future practice and gives great confidence to the world of ideas I inhabit as a critically engaged artist working across urban, regional and remote divides.

“This Australia thing, it’s a big place” he continued. “Ours is a unique experience with countless perspectives and multitudinous contexts, which are not free of geographical limitations, let alone financial ones. It takes huge efforts just to connect locally in our country and for anyone interested in affecting the global condition, challenges like these can become insurmountable.

“This scholarship will enable extensive growth within my practice by providing me with the means to develop, perform and deliver on a new project, which would not have been possible otherwise. I am thrilled to accept this scholarship and extremely excited about the ideas that can now be made a reality given this opportunity.”

Dale Collier is currently 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 the disciplines of sound, video, performance and installation while re-examining the 21st Century roles of the First Nations artist, activist and ally. Collier's work utilises intertextuality to challenge and interrogate postcolonial frameworks, contemporary falsehoods, nationalistic propaganda and northern European convict/settler tradition. Often manifesting as institutional critique, his site-specific projects traverse live spaces and places of key cultural, geo-political and environmental concern. Collier grew up on Yuin Country and now resides within the Awabakal and Wiradjuri Nations.

“We congratulate Dale on being awarded the scholarship in a very competitive round. His application was outstanding and presented opportunities to collaborate, consult and experiment across regional centres in New South Wales” said this year’s assessors Rachel Piercy, Director of Manning Regional Art Gallery and Gina Mobayed, Director of Goulburn Regional Art Gallery.

Esther Anatolitis, Executive Director of NAVA said “I feel so energised reading about what Dale's got in mind. Here is an artist whose work tackles the world's greatest challenges head-on, right when Australia most needs that thinking. Dale's choice of materials and process, with a strong focus on his own body, will offer audiences the kinds of experiences that have us forever questioning what we give and take from the fragile biosphere. I can't wait for the work that emerges, and I thank the assessment panel for their sensitive deliberations given the record number of excellent applications NAVA received this year.”

Fifty eligible applications were received this year from artists across the state, from Goonellabah to Broken Hill. The artists represent diverse practices and were of an extremely high calibre, making the 2019 Windmill Trust Scholarship decision challenging. The Windmill Trust and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) congratulate artist Dr Fiona Foley announced as the recipient of 21st annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

For further information on the Windmill Trust Scholarship please contact: Penelope Benton, NAVA pbenton@visualarts.net.au or visit nava.net.au Windmill Trust Management Committee info@windmilltrust.org.au or visit windmilltrust.org.au.

25 June 2018

The Windmill Trust and the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) congratulate artist Dr Fiona Foley announced as the recipient of 21st annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

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 water-colour paper. She said today, "In December 2017 I completed my practice-led PhD with Griffith University, its outcomes jointly titled, Biting the Clouds: The Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, 1897. Now it’s time for a change of pace and spending some time back on my traditional country. The landmass of K’gari1 means Paradise. With the assistance of the Windmill Trust Scholarship I am overjoyed to be going home and creating a new body of work during the Spring of 2018. After a lean six months this really feels like winning lotto." she continued.

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. A descendent from the Badtjala people of K’gari (Fraser Island), she is currently based in Lismore, NSW. Foley explores a range of concerns through her practice including colonial race relations, sexuality and the experiences of Aboriginal populations at the turn of the twentieth century. 1 K’gari is the name for Fraser Island. 

Representatives from the Windmill Trust Management Committee said “we are excited to support an outstanding established professional who is continually striving to take time to renew, refresh and further explore her practice. The Windmill are thrilled to support Fiona Foley in this next phase of her work.” “Forty-seven eligible applications were received this year from artists across the state, from Lightning Ridge to Gerringong. The artists represent diverse practices and were of an extremely high calibre, making the decision challenging. We extend our congratulations to all 2018 applicants on the high quality of their proposals. This presents an exciting start to the Windmill’s third decade”, they continued.

Penelope Benton, General Manager of NAVA said “Australia’s artists work under increasingly precarious conditions, so scholarships like this are increasingly important for artists at all stages of their careers. NAVA is extremely proud to administer this annual program and delighted to see Fiona Foley awarded this opportunity to take the time and space to develop her career in new directions on her traditional country.”

For further information on the Windmill Trust Scholarship please contact: Penelope Benton, NAVA pbenton@visualarts.net.au or visit nava.net.au Windmill Trust Management Committee info@windmilltrust.org.au or visit windmilltrust.org.au.

Collaborative duo win the 2017 Windmill Trust Scholarship for NSW Regional Artists

20 July 2017

The Windmill Trust together with the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) are pleased to announce that Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig are this year’s recipients of the 20th annual Windmill Trust Scholarship for NSW Regional Artists which was doubled this year to $10,000. 

"We are very honoured and grateful to receive the 2017 Windmill Trust Scholarship. The generous support of the Trust will allow us the time and space to carry out field research that will inform several new works. It will also give us the opportunity to document and share the outcomes in a quality publication for a wider audience." Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig

The couple will undergo a process of historical inquiry and a period of creative field research in order to produce two major new works. One will be exhibited as part of ‘The Altitude Project’taking place in Kingsford Smith Park, Katoomba on 17 February 2018, and the other will be part of their ‘Out of Bounds’ project at the Blue Mountains City Art Gallery (BMCAG) in May 2018.

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. The underlying and ongoing themes of their collaboration consider sadness, exhaustion, awe and balance. Their work often involves documentation of themselves and their two children interacting in a variety of landscapes; their current work uses the archetypal children’s playground as a design reference and a particular setting for field studies and experimentation.

“Rachel Peachey and Paul Mosig’s multi-disciplinary work demonstrates a keen interest in performance and collaboration and was a stand out for us among this year’s applications. We are excited to award this significant scholarship in its 20th year to regional artists with such an evolving and diverse practice.” 2017 Assessors - Michael Moran, Curator MAMA Albury and Talia Linz, Curator Artspace

The Windmill Trust Scholarship was established in 1997 by Primrose Moss to honour her sister, artist and former Director of the Macquarie Galleries, the late Penny Meagher and is targeted at Regional NSW Artists.

The Windmill Trust Scholarship was born out of a desire to offer support to NSW artists living outside metropolitan areas to advance their careers. Over the years the Windmill has managed to increase awareness of the vast array of talent that exists in the diverse regional centres of NSW, including Bathurst, Moree, Orange, Wapengo and the Northern Rivers, supporting projects from a diverse range of media.

This year’s recipients will also be part of the upcoming 20th anniversary exhibition at MAMA, Albury. The exhibition officially opens on Saturday 23 September and runs from 14 September to 22 October 2017 with funding from the Windmill Trust, Create NSW and support by both MAMA and NAVA.

MEDIA RELEASE

Today the Windmill Trust announced an expansion of their Windmill Trust Scholarship for Regional NSW Artists, administered by the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA). It recognises and rewards the high quality of art practice coming out of rural and regional areas.

Primrose Moss founder of the Trust said, "2017 is the 20th anniversary of the Scholarship and represents a milestone for the Trust. We are delighted to announce the program for 2017 includes a doubling of the award to $10,000 and a 20th anniversary retrospective exhibition in 2017 of the works of the past winners.” 

The 20th anniversary exhibition to be held September – October 2017 at MAMA, Albury has received funding from Arts NSW and is being supported by both MAMA and NAVA.

Tamara Winikoff OAM, Executive Director of NAVA said, “This prestigious award has a tremendous impact in providing career changing opportunities to regional NSW artists. In its 20^th year we have been enormously proud of the outcomes. Now these can be greatly expanded. The additional funding will further inspire and recognise the excellence of regional NSW artists’ work. It enables artists to realise their dreams for exhibitions, residencies and research undertaken both locally and internationally. The Windmill is a fitting memorial to the artist Penny Meagher in whose name it was established.”

Duke Albada winner of the 2016 scholarship said “The scholarship enabled me to undertake a project on the Apollo Estate (in Dubbo) that connected with community, fostered pride and had positive and long lasting social impacts. The Windmill Trust Scholarship enabled me to investigate and begin this community art project. It wouldn’t have been possible without it. “

Application for the 2017 Windmill Trust Scholarship for Regional NSW Artists is now open and closes on Saturday 10^th June 2017. One  $10,000 scholarship will be awarded. Applications can be made online at: https://visualarts.net.au/nava-grants/

For further information on the Windmill Trust and previous winners of this award visit http://www.windmilltrust.org.au/

For more information on the Windmill Trust, the 2017 Scholarship and the 
20th Anniversary program please contact: Penelope Benton, NAVA on 02 9368 1900 or pbenton@visualarts.net.au

The Windmill Trust together with the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA)are pleased to announce that Duke Albada is this year’s recipient of the 19th annual Windmill Trust Scholarship for NSW Regional Artists of $5,000. 

In September 2016, Albada will be Artist in Residence at Apollo Estate, a social housing area in East Dubbo, NSW. Her project, ‘Inside Out’, intends to break through a prejudiced perception of people based on their locality, and will reveal how the effected persons perceive themselves. The work will accumulate in an arts trail and photographic publication that will be presented as part of Artlands, the Regional Arts Australia biennial conference returning to NSW for the first time in 14 years. Arts delegates from all over Regional Australia will converge on the city of Dubbo in October 2016.

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. Multi-layered stories and topics are conveyed by means of hybrid installations including the location and community participation as a primary element. These works are a public platform for marginalised groups; providing an opportunity to share points of view and individual world experience.

Details for the 2015 Award Presentation to Harrie Fasher.