$10k scholarship helps artist walk in ancestors’ footsteps

ARTIST claims prestigious scholarship to fund her journey to trace the steps of her ancestors.

Debbie Taylor Worley, 'Beyond Gavrinis', 2018.

A TWEED COAST resident has been named as the recipient of the Windmill Trust Scholarship from the National Association for the Visual Arts.

Debbie Taylor Worley will use the $10,000 dollar scholarship to fund a practice-led journey to visit her family's ancestral homeland between Tamworth and Walgett.

Ms Taylor Worley said the trip will allow her to reconnect spiritually with the places of her ancestors and childhood.

"The Windmill Scholarship allows me to take an extended research trip to Gamilaraay Country, my traditional country, to reconnect spiritually and literally to the places of my ancestors and my childhood," she said.

 

Debbie Taylor Worley's work, 'Beyond Gavrinis; Maid, Mother, Crone', was part of her Honours exhibition at the QCA

 

"I'll be investigating places and spaces significant to my culture and personal memories and creating artwork of the landscape, in the landscape and formed by the landscape."

Ms Taylor Worley is a first nations doctoral candidate researching visual art after joining the Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art Program and completing an honours program as a mature age student.

"I never thought this would be possible when I first enrolled in my degree. I entered as a mature aged woman who thought I'd improve at a hobby," she said.

"Instead, I gained a career in the arts as an exhibition co-ordinator for a Brisbane gallery, a part-time lecturer and arts workshop facilitator, and a practising artist and academic."

Queensland College of Art Director Professor Elisabeth Findlay said that the scholarship has the potential to be a turning point in an artist's career.

"Receiving an award like this can be a turning point in an artist's career," she said.

"We are delighted for Debbie and look forward to seeing the body of work she creates as part of the scholarship.