Past Winners Of The Queensland Regional Art Awards

The Queensland Regional Art Awards has a rich history spanning many years – see the works that took out the top prizes from 2010 to 2016! Will your artwork win the top prize this year? Enter the Queensland Regional Art Awards 2017

2016

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Colours of Queensland

Karen Stephens, Noogooraville – Flying Arts Art for Life Award – $10,000 cash, acquisitive award
Carmen Beezley-Drake, Mapping the Colours – The Annie Tan Memorial Watercolour Award -$2500 cash, non acquisitive award
Edwin Hamill, Pineapple Music – Brian Tucker Young Artist Development Award – $1500 cash, non acquisitive award
Mieke den Otter, It was just after dusk and the quiet had begun to descend – Janet de Boer/Flying Arts Textile Award – $750 bursary to attend Blue Mountains Contextart
Nina Dawson, Bush Bride – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award – Adult: $500 materials voucher
Helena Dohle, Ocean Blue – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award – Young Person: $250 materials voucher
Donna Davis, Entwined III – The Edge Digital Art Award – Fully funded one week residency at The Edge (SLQ)
Buck Richardson, Generating the Colours of Queensland… after dark – Flying Arts/Jugglers Art Space Regional Artist Award – Fully funded one week residency at Jugglers Art Space, Brisbane

**Noogooraville**

**Artist:** Karen Stephens
**Artist Location:** Redbank
**Medium:** Oil on Polyester (2015)
**Dimensions:** 59 x 68 x 5 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Noogooraville is a contemporary landscape painting that investigates the Noogoora burr, a weed of central Western Queensland. Specimens for this painting were observed and collected in Winton. The unusual colour palette is atypical for an Australian landscape in order to understand the burrs status as a foreigner. The ‘Noogoora’ burr was accidentally introduced to this land from Central America in the late nineteenth-century. The carpet of strange forms is perhaps not too dissimilar to the Richard Godfrey Rivers paintings of introduced exotic trees – ‘Under the Jacaranda Tree’ (1903) and ‘An Alien in Queensland’ (Flame of the forest tree) (1904) (QAG). Noogooraville invites reward for looking. The pictorial space creates a visual dialogue depicting an abundant layering of forms in an endless space with no horizon that leaves the eye circling. Tactility of paint invites visual touch and asks for a better understanding of the deeper meaning behind the work.

**Photographer:** Faun Photography

**Mapping the Colours**

**Artist:** Carmen Beezley-Drake
**Artist Location:** Rockhampton
**Medium:** watercolour (2016)
**Dimensions:** 78 x 120 x 3 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Capturing the essence of this broad landscape seems a natural progression, having painted the Queensland landscape for so many years. The abstract shapes overlaid with colour create a rugged textural quality, as colours can change drastically with the seasons, from a dry red/ ochre to lush greens. Watercolours fluidity and transparency combined with its tendency to flow in a slightly uncontrolled manner can be an asset in creating the surface of the land and emphasis its abstract quality. I sketch the interlocking lines from maps until I have a grided pattern. Overlaying with splashes of colour letting it run freely blending into their own shapes, I pick up linear shapes and reinforce them in other areas. Structured lines represent the human interaction, etched into the landscape surface, both connecting and separating the spaces, the ‘roads’ sometime faint and often vibrant foretell the tangibility of marks that time will eventually obliterate.

**Photographer:** Carmen Beezley-Drake

**Pineapple Music**

**Artist:** Edwin Hamill
**Artist Location:** Buderim
**Medium:** Acrylic on canvas (2016)
**Dimensions:** 75 x 100 x 2cm
**Artist Statement:**
My piece, titled “Pineapple Music” pays homage to one of the biggest festivals in my region. The big pineapple festival is a congregation of people from all different life backgrounds celebrating a common interest of music. The festival gives off a somewhat relaxed vibe which has tried to be conveyed through the style of this painting with the use of loose brushstrokes, simple figures and an overall abstract tone. The sense of community is heavily implied by the faceless individuals within the crowd. What is hoped to be shown from this painting is a sense of belonging which is represented by people being brought together by a common factor, in this case it is everyone looking towards the pineapple which is an icon. But overall it is is a commentary on how i see my region as a whole.

**Photographer:** Edwin Hamill

**‘It was just after dusk and the quiet had begun to descend’**

**Artist:** Mieke den Otter –
**Artist Location:** Bellbird Park Ipswich
**Medium:** Textile (2016)
**Dimensions:** 50 x 120 x 5 cm
**Artist Statement:**
This handmade felt is a simple circular shape that surprised me when I hung it on a white wall to photograph. The piece transformed into the intrinsic notion of a moth. The textures and colours are reminiscent of the beautiful surface marks made by the scribbly gum moth on its host tree. Only a quarter of moths in the natural world have been named. It’s an unseen world and we need to respect its diversity.

**Photographer:** Mieke den Otter

**Bush Bride**

**Artist:** Nina Dawson
**Artist Location:** Mission Beach
**Medium:** Textile, Wearable Art (2016)
**Dimensions:** 120 x 50 x 1 cm
**Artist Statement:**
I am a Textile artist from North Queensland currently creating wearable art pieces with the Ecoprint method. This piece ‘Bush Bride’ is made using pure silk and is dyed using local native North Queensland plants. The local environment and in particular, plants are my passion. The unique forests of the Wet Tropics inspire me to create wearable art pieces capturing the essence of the Australian bush and allowing me to reconnect and blend back into my local environment. I have a background in Environmental Science and I have worked as an ethnobotanist, horticulturist and revegetator specialising in local native plants. My experiences have allowed me to get to learn about the plants personally by knowing their forms and uses. Teasing out the colours from plants to make dyed prints on textiles is my latest journey into the wonderful world of Queensland’s native plants and truly captures the colours of Queensland.

**Photographer:** Nina Dawson

**Ocean Blue**

**Artist:** Helenna Dohle
**Artist Location:** Linville
**Medium:** Fineliner Pens, Pencils, Felt Pens, on Paper (2015)
**Dimensions:** 73 x 53 x 2cm
**Artist Statement:**
Ocean Blue To me the ‘Colours of Queensland’ is best represented by our beautiful beaches. What can be more vibrant, colourful and life-giving than our beautiful ocean? In this artwork, the ocean is comprised of symbols, and patterns in the brightly coloured blues and greens of the Pacific. This is all contrasted against the sandy coloured beach in the foreground. The sky is a vivid light blue, and the mountains in the distance are a deep cobalt. These colours, are what I think of when I imagine the colours of our Sunshine state. Inspired by a trip to Bribie, this artwork is a self portrait of me walking along the beach.

**Photographer:** Helenna Dohle

**Entwined III**

**Artist:** Donna Davis
**Artist Location:** Deebing Heights
**Medium:** Pigment print on fine art rag (2016)
**Dimensions:** 65 x 45 x 5 cm
**Artist Statement:**
‘Entwined III’ explores ecological systems as vibrant, interconnected and sublime living networks that support, encourage and sustain new growth. Suspended above the surface, the trunk like forms have an intricate network of threads entwined within and around, above and below, surrounding, protecting and nurturing the young fungi inside. In nature there is a beautiful balance between function and aesthetics, where healthy ecosystems bring about new life and with it wonder and opportunities. It is easy to draw parallels between natural and social ecologies: Similar to the unseen root systems of plants and fungi, our interactions in and with our own community help to sustain a vibrant, healthy and colourful place to live, grow and bloom.

**Photographer:** Donna Davis

**Generating the Colours of Queensland . . . after dark**

**Artist:** Buck Richardson
**Artist Location:** Kuranda
**Medium:** Digital Art from original photographs (2016)
**Dimensions:** 50 x 50 x 50 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Everyone knows the stunning vibrant colours of Queensland’s butterflies, flowers and our tropical reef fish. Not so many know the colours that abound under the cover of darkness, the moths, the beetles and the shield bugs in particular. A moth or a beetle may appear almost black to the naked eye. But under light, colour, pattern and shape emerge, maybe with cryptic subtlety or maybe with sharpness and vigour. These creatures of the night have populated my palette for over a decade. My passion is to satisfy and delight the eye aesthetically with these gems and to stimulate interest and respect for the myriad of creatures that underpin the work, as in my 3D piece, Generating the Colours of Queensland . . . after dark.

**Photographer:** Buck Richardson

2015

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Cream of the Crop

Rose Rigley, The Weight of Remembrance – The Wayne Kratzmann Award – $10,000 cash, acquisitive award
Nicola Hooper, Rats with Wings – The Annie Tan Memorial Watercolour Award -$2500 cash, non acquisitive award
Aaron Butt, Missed Encounter (Foster) – Brian Tucker Young Artist Development Award – $1500 cash, non acquisitive award
Linda Clark, Wishbones and Backbones – Gray Puksand Digital Art Award – fully funded two week residency at The Edge, Queensland State Library
Brigitte Peel, History Unknown – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award – Adult: $500 materials voucher
Ayanna Pocock, Hidden Vines – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award – Young Person: $250 materials voucher
Ilona Demecs with Grant Hunter, Rebuilding our shelves – Janet de Boer/Flying Arts Textile Award – $750 bursary to attend Blue Mountains Contextart

**The Weight of Remembrance**

**Artist:** Rose Rigley
**Artist Location:** Whitfield
**Medium:** Assemblage (paper, cotton/linen thread, found object) (2015)
**Dimensions:** 35 x 20 x 18 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Rose Rigley is a Cairns-based emerging artist and community arts worker. Utilising sculptural assemblage, encaustic and artist books, her practice focuses on the human condition with a particular emphasis on memory and finding a narrative in the ordinary and mundane. In the personal, Rigley seeks to find the universal. ‘The weight of remembrance’ explores the temporal and fragile nature of memory and becomes a symbolic vessel for holding and preserving her aging mother’s fading recollections. Drawing upon the ‘feminine’ act of sewing to recreate the threads of her mother’s previous experiences and stories, the artist attempts to hold back the effects of approaching Alzheimer disease. Thoughtless of location and indiscriminate in nature, this mental scourge slowly erodes the sum of the individual – taking their memories and experiences – and leaves behind a ‘light-weighted nothingness’ where once the person was.

**The Weight of Remembrance (detail)**

**Artist:** Rose Rigley
**Artist Location:** Whitfield
**Medium:** Assemblage (paper, cotton/linen thread, found object) (2015)
**Dimensions:** 35 x 20 x 18 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Rose Rigley is a Cairns-based emerging artist and community arts worker. Utilising sculptural assemblage, encaustic and artist books, her practice focuses on the human condition with a particular emphasis on memory and finding a narrative in the ordinary and mundane. In the personal, Rigley seeks to find the universal. ‘The weight of remembrance’ explores the temporal and fragile nature of memory and becomes a symbolic vessel for holding and preserving her aging mother’s fading recollections. Drawing upon the ‘feminine’ act of sewing to recreate the threads of her mother’s previous experiences and stories, the artist attempts to hold back the effects of approaching Alzheimer disease. Thoughtless of location and indiscriminate in nature, this mental scourge slowly erodes the sum of the individual – taking their memories and experiences – and leaves behind a ‘light-weighted nothingness’ where once the person was.

**Rats with Wings**

**Artist:** Nicola Hooper
**Artist Location:** Shailer Park
**Medium:** Hand coloured lithograph, coloured with watercolours (2015)
**Dimensions:** 100 x 120 cm
**Artist Statement:**
This work researches the role of pigeons in the origin and spread of zoonotic diseases such as Paramyxovirus and Psittacosis viruses. Zoonoses is classified as an infection or infectious disease that is transferred from animal host to human. 75% of all new human diseases have their genesis within animal hosts. Lithography and watercolors are used to explore the way humans treat pigeons in the context of fear of disease. There are many zoonotic diseases that could infect the wider population of Queenlsand not only in pigeons but also the likes of the Hendra Virus, Q Fever, Salmonella and a number of other zoonoses where birds, rats and bats are the originating reservoirs. Pigeons have been demonized by some because of disease, but also revered by others. They could possibly vindicate themselves from responsibility via their role in scientific research to the benefit of humankind.

**Missed Encounter (Foster)**

**Artist:** Aaron Butt
**Artist Location:** Ningi
**Medium:** Oil on canvas (2014)
**Dimensions:** 76 x 60 x 4 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Missed Encounter (Foster) is a portrait of American Art Historian and Art Theorist Hal Foster. The balding and sagging Foster is depicted wearing a blue business shirt in a pure white space, smirking knowingly at the viewer. The frontward, almost chiaroscuro lighting illuminates Foster’s dark eyes and sweaty upper lip, flaunting the painting’s relationship with photography. However, the portrait’s meticulous, handmade rendering and existence as an original, three-dimensional object separates it from the instantaneous, infinitely reproducible results of the camera. The title Missed Encounter directly refers to Foster’s exploration of psychoanalyst Jacque Lacan’s conception of the missed encounter with the real; although perhaps more directly relates to the mediation of the subject and viewer of the portrait by the picture plane. Although one can see Hal Foster, even feel like they could touch his freshly shaven face, one’s engagement with the influential writer remains a missed encounter.

**Wishbones and Backbones**

**Artist:** Linda Clark
**Artist Location:** Toowoomba
**Medium:** Video projection and sculptural textile installation (2015)
**Dimensions:** 40 x 50 cm
**Artist Statement:**
My recent work explores the shifting re-interpretations of motherhood as subject matter in contemporary art. In particular, my work investigates how the process of traversing mother/artist identities within the home can be a useful model for regional artists to reinstate a creative space between motherhood and art practice. This premise involves re-orienting domestic rituals and personal narrative as innovative sites in installation art that blur private and public boundaries. Wishbones & Backbones is a video and sculptural installation in which everyday ritual and personal narrative from the mothering role within the home are transformed with new meanings of female empowerment. The work subverts traditional expectations of the ‘good’ mother by exploring dichotomies and undercurrents experienced within the mothering role. Within this body of work, the dichotomies surrounding ‘lessons’ passed from mother to child are explored, where the lesson could be positive empowerment of the child, or the mother.

**History Unknown**

**Artist:** Brigitte Peel
**Artist Location:** Jubilee Pocket
**Medium:**Pencil (2014)
**Dimensions:** 68 x 76 x 3 cm
**Artist Statement:**
I live in paradise. 74 stunning islands and a huge variety of reef systems to explore, there is no better way to describe The Whitsundays. As an enthusiastic scuba diver I am passionate about the marine industry. I travel daily to the Great Barrier Reef as a photographer capturing people experiencing the wonders of this natural World Heritage Site. I have travelled the world but have always been drawn back to this area and the magic it beholds. My piece ‘History Unknown’ is of a hawksbill turtle emerging from the darkness – wise and mysterious. Where have you come from? Where are you heading? What have you witnessed in your lifetime? The Great Barrier Reef and its abundance of marine life is very special and important to my community. It deserves respect, recognition and protection to ensure that many generations to come can continue to admire its undeniable beauty.

**Hidden Vines**

**Artist:** Ayanna Pocock
**Artist Location:** Laidley
**Medium:** Acrylic on canvas (2014)
**Dimensions:** 100 x 100 x 2 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Hidden Vines addresses the invisible forces that affect our being, as experienced through the heart. These include strong emotions that give a sense of constriction on the life-force, such as anxiety and stress. However, these emotions are not seen most times upon the outside – therefore, that is why the heart is being tightened by invisible vines that wrap themselves around, much like a snake does when killing their pray. During the time painting this artwork, I experienced these emotions almost on a daily basis – and nobody knew because it is something experienced inside. The painting attempts to explore the inner feelings of the human brain and how it can affect us physically – keeping us in a state of limbo between serenity on the outside and chaos within.

**Rebuilding our shelves’ (reverse)**

**Artist:** Ilona Demecs, in collaboration with Grant Hunter
**Artist Location:** Imbil
**Medium:** Woven tapestry with red cedar (2015)
**Dimensions:** 42 x 36 x 36 cm
**Artist Statement:**
At the time of the proposed Traveston dam in the Mary Valley many people had to pack their treasures, empty their shelves and leave their properties and communities. With the cancellation of the dam, houses that were to be demolished now have new owners. This small shelf of tongue and groove celebrates the colourful life of the people who are renewing the community of the Mary Valley and the woven walls celebrate the various colours of that QLD icon; the Queenslander house.

**Rebuilding our shelves’**

**Artist:** Ilona Demecs, in collaboration with Grant Hunter
**Artist Location:** Imbil
**Medium:** Woven tapestry with red cedar (2015)
**Dimensions:** 42 x 36 x 36 cm
**Artist Statement:**
At the time of the proposed Traveston dam in the Mary Valley many people had to pack their treasures, empty their shelves and leave their properties and communities. With the cancellation of the dam, houses that were to be demolished now have new owners. This small shelf of tongue and groove celebrates the colourful life of the people who are renewing the community of the Mary Valley and the woven walls celebrate the various colours of that QLD icon; the Queenslander house.

2014

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Vital Signs

Sharon McKenzie, Exquisite Corpse – The Wayne Kratzmann Award
Kelly Dee Knight, Breathe Life – Highly Commended
Lauren Ryan, The Rescue – Brian Tucker Young Artist Development Award
Buck Richardson, Serenity Mill – The Edge Digital Art Award
Donna Davis, One… – Highly Commended
Renton Bishopric/Clare Botfield, Millinoma (Open) – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award
Kiera Byrne – Mikki (Youth)
Ilona Demecs, Abbot Point – Gray Puksand /TAFTA Textile Award

Exquisite Corpse artwork — **Exquisite Corpse**
**Artist:** Sharon McKenzie
**Artist Location:** West Ipswich
**Medium:** Pen (2014)
**Dimensions:** 120 x 95 cm
**Artist Statement:**
The theme of “vital signs” is explored through species loss due to urbanization of regional areas. Threatened species are becoming more prevalent in regional areas as intact bush land is being cleared to make way for development and mining exploration. The animals featured in this image are the black throated finch, grey headed flying fox, swift parrot and the squatter pigeon. These animals are all endangered or vulnerable animals of my hometown of Ipswich. The title refers to the beauty of the preserved animal in a museum context and also the game played by the Surrealists. The “exquisite corpse” is made up of several parts of these animals and references preservation (how that which is preserved can be edited), cloning, and fragmentation and art history.

Breathe Life artwork — **Breathe Life**
**Artist:** Kelly-Dee Knight
**Artist Location:** Cedar Creek
**Medium:** Hand cut & coloured paper, pins, foamboard in a white box frame with perspex (2014)
**Dimensions:** 120 x 120 cm
**Artist Statement:**
This artwork addresses the precarious and complex relationships humans experience with our natural environment and resources. It honours my deep connection to the Australian bush (having spent many years living in regional Queensland) and the healing power of the breath. The work also comments on the interconnectedness of humans to the environment, our consciousness and impact upon it. Humans are destroying the living support system for our planet through climate change — we are suffocating the very thing that we depend on for survival. I have created a respiratory system from drawings of local flora located within 10km of my home. These drawings were meticulously hand cut and colored then pinned to reference specimens found in a museum. Through the making of this work I am forced to slow down and reflect upon the importance of nature for my existence. I breathe in life and breathe out life.

The Rescue artwork — **The Rescue**
**Artist:** Lauren Ryan
**Artist Location:** Beaudesert
**Medium:** Stop-motion animation (2014)
**Artist Statement:**
Set in the prep-room at my parent’s veterinary practice, ‘The Rescue’ alludes to the decline of the dairy industry in Queensland after its deregulation in 2000. Performed by left over milking machine parts from my father’s defunct consultancy business, ‘The Rescue’ also makes reference to the trials my family endured in attempting to survive within the dairy industry through those difficult times. The notion of ‘Vital Signs’ is also explored through childhood memories of growing up around a family business in a rural town, and how that has shaped my creativity. Playful and naïve, the work echoes musings on long hours spent waiting at the clinic with only my imagination and a box full of forgotten parts to entertain me. Creating the animation was, in a way, a re-enactment of those times – the movement of the objects intuitive decisions based on years of imaginative play as a child.

Serenity Mill artwork — **Serenity Mill**
**Artist:** Buck Richardson
**Artist Location:** Kuranda
**Medium:** Photography/Digital Art (2014)
**Dimensions:** 80 x 108 cm
**Artist Statement:**
In Serenity Mill I have juxtaposed the demolition of the decaying Babinda Sugar Mill with the meticulously maintained Serenity Garden. These two icons of Babinda were only a stone’s throw apart fronting the Bruce Highway. Now, the mill has gone. One must pose the question: Which of these images represents the vital sign for the future of rural and remote Queensland?

One... artwork — **One…**
**Artist:** Donna Davis
**Artist Location:** Deebing Heights
**Medium:** Digital print on acrylic (2014)
**Dimensions:** 30 x 20 cm
**Artist Statement:**
one… depicts an individual flora specimen removed from its natural environment and placed into a foreign landscape. Reflecting the current evolving ecological discourse, the specimen appears to hang in suspended animation in a state of ambiguity awaiting some form of intervention. Every individual plant forms part of a vital interconnected network of living life support systems for our planet, without which humans could not survive. The landscape, however, is changing with an estimated one in every five plant species vulnerable to extinction; with human intervention being the leading cause. one… reflects notions of life and death simultaneously in order to explore how our interventions will inform our ecological future. The work invites the viewer to contemplate what vital ecological signs they would consider important enough to effect change in the way we interact with our environment.

Millinoma artwork — **Millinoma**
**Artist:** Renton Bishopric and Clare Botfield
**Artist Location:** Byfield
**Medium:** Ceramic / Glazed Stoneware (2014)
**Dimensions:** 50 x 50 x 5 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Experimenting with new glazes means examining the subtleties of the glazed surface. I undertake the fascinating task of observing the changes in behaviour of the glazes depending on the atmosphere in the kiln and other variables. I analyse the surface down to the millimetre. It’s those tiny layers and specks that reveal the next amazing process to pursue. I am constantly reminded to examine another surface regularly and thoroughly, checking for minute changes, observing the tiny specks and textures – my skin. Recently several friends and family have dealt with the ordeal of Melanoma. As Australians this is a serious reality. I invite you to participate in glaze examination with ‘Millinoma’. Meticulously observe the details, look deeply and enjoy the process. I encourage you to return home, repeat the process with the surface of your own skin with the same focus and fascination. Be aware of the vital signs.

Abbot Point artwork — **Abbot Point**
**Artist:** Ilona Demecs
**Artist Location:** Imbil
**Medium:** Handwoven tapestry; wool, cotton, metallic yarn, acrylic paint and felted wool (2014)
**Dimensions:** 60 x 38 cm
**Artist Statement:**
Abbot Point is to be dredged, millions of tons of sediment lifted from the seabed and dumped near the Great Barrier Reef, to enable the cheapest way of getting coal onto ships. This vital and beautiful ecosystem will bleed away as a result of the lack of regard for the importance of nature.

2013

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Living Change

Renton Bishopric, Coal for Breakfast – The Wayne Kratzmann Award
Jasmine Jean, That Place inside Me – Young Artist Development Award
Ali George, My Father’s Shed – TAFTA Textile Prize
Christine Turner, Immersed – The Edge Digital Award
Seabastian Toast, Pig Posy – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award

Coal for breakfast artwork — **Coal for breakfast -The Wayne Kratzmann Award Winner**
**Artist:** Renton Bishopric
**Artist Location:** Byfield
**Medium:** Ceramics (2013)
**Artist Statement:**
“Coal for Breakfast?” speaks of my local environmental concerns, specifically the impact of coal mining and the industrialisation of the Great Barrier Reef. I see first-hand the impacts of the coal industry around our coastline and inland. The polluted estuaries, devastated ecosystems, sick animals, complaints of unclean air and foul drinking water. The social and financial struggles of farming families and communities as mining companies ruthlessly take over agriculture. I am faced with the question; “What will we eat, drink and breathe…?” In my work “Coal For Breakfast?”, I’ve used destructive techniques to alter an otherwise perfect form, my literal participation in this bringing me even closer to the unpleasantness of my imagined future.

That place inside me artwork — **That place inside me -Flying Arts Young Artist Development Award Winner**
**Artist:** Jasmine Jean
**Artist Location:** Condon
**Medium:** Ink, enamel, charcoal, oil (2013)
**Artist Statement:**
As a person living with mental illness, I having recently recovered from a mental breakdown. For this point in my life, I had related to the notion of ‘’living change’’ in a uniquely personal way. It meant personal growth, liberation and adaptation in difficult circumstances. Using an expression of the subconscious I have attempted to reproduce, in my experience, how the peculiarity of mental illness feels. Communicating emotional chaos through accident and chance, I have considered the instinctive creative process of most importance, with little concern for representation or rationality in subject matter. It is a liberating process to connect with my inner chaos, to introspect and to self-observe, as it opens the possibility for personal growth, self-awareness and artistic freedom.

My Father's Shed artwork — **My Father’s Shed**
**Artist:** Ali George
**Artist Location:** Tarome
**Medium:** Cotton (hand dyed, rusted), batting, thread (2013)
**Artist Statement:**
I am a textile and mixed media artist living on the edge of the Scenic Rim (Tarome). I have been a quilter since 1987. Through the language of textiles and thread I create art quilts and textile works that explore the nature of relationships and change. I create fabric pieces, building change through layers of texture using dyes, rubbing with oil based pigments, overprinting with textile paints and machine stitching. My Father’s Shed explores feelings of grief, loss and the experience of monumental change when moving after forty years of him working in his sacred space and place. Creating the quilt required acceptance of change – the process of printing tools, tins, nails – his lifetime of collecting those things that might one day be useful, abruptly discarded in the metamorphosis. My Father’s Shed is layered and stitched with the memory of living change.

Immersed artwork — **Immersed -The Edge Digital Award Winner**
**Artist:** Christine Turner
**Artist Location:** Bundaberg
**Medium:** Digital (2013)
**Artist Statement:**
The recent floods in Bundaberg resulted in a community in deep shock. We had never contemplated the possibility of a disastrous event of this scale happening. We had been complacent, and paid a high price. Our lives were changed forever. My work depicts the figure in the ‘floodscape’. It is a merging of a photograph of a woman with an aerial photograph of the landscape around Bundaberg. ‘Immersed’ represents the deep psychological impact the floods had on the people of Bundaberg.

Pig Posy artwork — **Pig Posy – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Award Winner**
**Artist:** Seabastion Toast
**Artist Location:** Palm Beach
**Medium:** Acrylic on Canvas (2013)
**Artist Statement:**
This work is part of a larger exploration into the relationship humans have with animals and subsequently, their environment. I am interested in both our physical reliance on the animals as well as our metaphoric constructions surrounding archetypes and mythology. The painting “Pig Posy” is a response to both the appalling conditions sows are kept in most factory farms and, conversely, our very intimate use of pigs to grow human organs for transplant. I find the hybridisation of the human/animal dichotomy particularly interesting as this challenges notions of an animal kingdom heirarchy. I find the implied hybridisation of species and subsequent evolutionary consequences a fascinating area of both philosophy and medical research and is very aptly surmised in the theme of living change.

2012

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Essential Character of Queensland

Donna Davis, Resilience – The Wayne Kratzmann Award
Teho Ropeyarn, Great Dividing Range Dreaming – Xstrata Young Artist Development Award
Garry Dolan, Coolum Beach – Art Shed Brisbane People’s Choice Prize
Noela Mills, Balancing Rock, Girraween NP – TAFTA Textile Prize
Donna Maree Robinson, Breat – Digital Art Award

Resilience artwork — **Resilience**
**Artist:** Donna Davis

Great Dividing Range Dreaming artwork — **Great Dividing Range Dreaming**
**Artist:** Teho Ropeyarn

Coolum Beach artwork — **Coolum Beach**
**Artist:** Garry Dolan

Vestiges - Bob Campbell (video entry) artwork — **Vestiges – Bob Campbell (video entry)**
**Artist:** Donna Maree Robinson

2011

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Connection

Merete Megarrity, Bush Memories – Wayne Kratzmann Art Award
Luke FitzGerald, Small Faces – Obsessions – Xstrata Young Artist Development Award
Elise Higginson, Vibrant Nation – Art Shed- Brisbane People’s Choice Prize
Adrienne Kenafake, Undertow – TAFTA Textile Prize

Bush Memories artwork — **Bush Memories**
**Artist:** Merete Megarrity
**Artist Location:** Radford
**Medium:** Painting
**Artist Statement:**
I am attracted to nature within the gallery space. The beauty of the bush colours – focusing on the endless variations while fluctuating between density and simplicity. The exploration of the terrain of no rules; expressed by the fluidity of the colours interaction with the paper. Making art has become an essential tool for me to CONNECT with an unfamiliar landscape. Through this CONNECTION, I have been able to find my sense of place & belonging.

Small Faces- Obsessions artwork — **Small Faces- Obsessions**
**Artist:** Luke Alexander FitzGerald
**Artist Location:** Maleny
**Medium:** Painting
**Artist Statement:**
This art work is called “Small Faces : Obsessions” it is a series of small portraits of actors or characters who are from either TV or Movies. The portraits were painted on one sheet of paper but will be separated when framed. The portraits display Luke’s major obsession with TV and movies and has been a huge influence on his life since he was 3 years old. The TV screen has been Luke’s connection with the outside world and has taught him how to talk and read and eventually communicate with other people. Obsession is a major part of autism and Luke has used these obsessions to help him in his everyday life. The characters help him to connect to real people and places and have helped him to become an artist who relishes people admiring and talking about his art.

**Vibrant Nation**

**Artist:** Elise Higginson
Photographer: Elise Higginson

**Undertow**

**Artist:** Adrienne Kenefake

2010

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Our Place

Gabriel Smith, Urban Footprints – Wayne Kratzmann Art Award
Karla Marchesi, Teal Kitchen – Artshed Brisbane Young Artist Prize
Adrienne Kenafake, On the Hillside – People’s Choice Prize
Sally Charlton, Subtle Invaders – TAFTA Textile Award

2016

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Colours of Queensland

2015

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Cream of the Crop

2014

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Vital Signs

2013

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Living Change

2012

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Essential Character of Queensland

2011

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Connection

2010

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Our Place

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2016

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Colours of Queensland

2015

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Cream of the Crop

2014

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Vital Signs

2013

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Living Change

2012

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Essential Character of Queensland

2011

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Connection

2010

Queensland Regional Art Awards: Our Place

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