Windmill Trust Scholarship Recipients

Juanita McLauchlan was announced as the recipient of 25th annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

McLauchlan used the $10,000 scholarship to produce a new body of work which draws upon her Gamilaraay identity and family history to explore family connections through body adornment. The result of this enquiry will be Everywhen, a major solo exhibition at Wagga Wagga Gallery curated by Julie Ewington opening in May 2023.

‘I’m pretty excited to be receiving this scholarship,’ said Juanita McLauchlan. ‘To make the new work for Everywhen it is essential that I visit my family’s ancestral country on Gamilaraay land at Kootingal, near Tamworth and I would not be able to afford this without assistance. This opportunity will enhance it to another level. I am on the edge of an incredibly exciting and moving moment in my practice. I feel that all the threads are coming together in a really positive and productive way.’

Juanita McLauchlan is a Gamilaraay woman living on Wiradjuri country in Wagga Wagga. An experienced printmaker and mother of five, McLauchlan’s proposal involved developing ideas and techniques incorporating textiles and sculpture to find new ways to explore her Aboriginal heritage through her practice, which for generations was kept very quiet, as a family matter out of the eye of society and the authorities. 

‘We were unanimous in our selection of Juanita McLauchlan as recipient of the 2022 Windmill Trust Scholarship,’ said this year’s assessors, artist and 2021 scholarship recipient Dr Judith Nangala Crispin and artist and writer Matt Chun. 

‘McLauchlan has submitted a compelling application, with a clear demonstration of need, and a strong vision for the future trajectory of her practice. We are excited to see McLauchlan's skillful work expand.’

‘We are thrilled to support a project that contributes equally to First Nations culture and contemporary practice. McLauchlan’s work is utterly relevant and deeply rooted in culture. This is what it looks like when an Aboriginal artist stands up inside her power.’ 

‘McLauchlan’s project will strengthen her connection with land and provide a blueprint for others to do the same. Her proposal is a bold and compassionate act of truth-telling, as respectful of Country as it is of people.’

Dr Judith Nangala Crispin was announced as the recipient of 24th annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

Crispin used the $10,000 scholarship to make a visual-literary portrait of Millewa, the Murray River, where it passes through the Country of her ancestor Charlotte Clark. 

“I am thrilled to be receiving the 2021 Windmill Trust Scholarship. It's been such a tough couple of years for Australian artists, and it makes such a difference to feel supported and valued by peers,” said Crispin today. “This scholarship allows me to retrace my ancestor's footsteps along the banks of Millewa, the Murray River, making artwork to honour the plants and animals that live there.”

Dr Judith Nangala Crispin, a descendant of the Bpangerang people of north-east Victoria, is a poet and visual artist currently based in Wamboin, a rural-residential area in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales. Her practice is centred around lumachrome glass printing, a combination of lumen printing, chemigram and cliché-verre techniques. These alternative photographic methods are augmented in Crispin’s work with drawing. She describes her work as a collaboration with Country, because most materials are drawn from Country. Her artistic process, evolved through extensive experimentation, involves arranging blood, clay, sticks, leaves, seeds, resin, and ochres, with road-killed animals or birds, on light-sensitised paper. She does this en plein air, at the place the creature has died, to avoid disturbing their remains more than necessary.

“In a year of great uncertainty, Judith Nangala Crispin’s project impressed upon us the importance of maintaining connection to family, culture, and place,” said this year’s assessors, artist and 2020 scholarship recipient Debbie Taylor-Worley, artist and writer Matt Chun, and Director of Bathurst Regional Art Gallery, Sarah Gurich. 

“Judith’s 230 km journey along the banks of the Millewa / Murray River in the footsteps of her ancestor Charlotte Clark will result in the creation of a unique and compelling portrait of the Millewa that evokes the fragility, beauty, and interconnectedness of Country.”

Debbie Taylor-Worley was the recipient of 23rd annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

Taylor-Worley used 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.

Dale Collier was the recipient of 22nd annual scholarship for regional NSW artists.

Collier used 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 realities given this opportunity.”

Dale Collier is currently based in Newcastle, one of Australia's largest port cities. 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.

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

Foley 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.

Foley 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’gari 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." said 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, 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.

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.

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.

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.

The Windmill Trust together with the National Association for the Visual Arts were pleased to announce that Harrie Fasher was the 2015 recipient of the Windmill Trust Scholarship of $5,000. From August to October 2015, Fasher worked on research, the development of new work and strengthening of international creative connections via the Wildfjords Artistic Residency, Iceland, followed by a residency at the Suffock Punch Trust, UK, and a mentorship at Butley Mills foundry with artist and caster, Laurence Edwards (Suffolk, UK).

The Trustees are pleased to announce the winner of the 2014 scholarship is James Blackwell. James will use the grant to support his exhibition 'The Native Grid 11' at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in early 2015.

The Trustees have also supported an Encouragement Award to Rochelle Summerfield. Rochelle will exhibit new work at Brenda May Gallery, Danks Street Waterloo.

Congratulations to James and Rochelle. The assessors noted the continuing high standard of entries for the Windmill Scholarship. Thank you to all of this year's applicants.