Patrick Hockey “Kakadu Jabiru” (detail) c.1990 | Private Collection, Sydney
Our Projects
Projects which the Double R Arts Foundation supports aim to provide artists and arts professionals with assistance that can make a difference to their career pathways and life journeys. Financial support can be applied to costs that may include travel assistance, research, scholarships, national and international residencies, art materials, editing and technical costs, exhibition costs, photography and publications.
The Foundation’s aim is to encourage artists and art workers in the North Queensland region to embark on exciting new projects which explore, inspire and celebrate new ways of creating, experiencing and engaging with art.
2026|2027
Erica
Muriata
Erica Muriata is a Girramay woman from the Jumbun Aboriginal Community in the Murray Upper region, north-west of Cardwell, Queensland.
Erica’s artistic practice is diverse and includes painting, ceramics and weaving. Her woven bicornial (crescent-shaped, two-horned) baskets originate from the rainforest regions of Far North Queensland. These traditional baskets are renowned for their intricate use of materials and techniques passed down through generations.
Erica is passionate about preserving and passing on the stories of her ancestors. Raised by her father Jack Muriata, a respected Elder and community leader, and her mother Lillian Muriata, an accomplished painter, Erica inherited a rich legacy of storytelling and artistic expression.
With the financial support of the Double R Arts Foundation, in 2026 Erica will travel to the Australian Museum, Sydney and the Queensland Museum, Brisbane, to research their significant holdings of traditional Rainforest objects and cultural artefacts.
As a Jawun weaver and keeper of Rainforest cultural knowledge, this research and experience will be personally, artistically and culturally significant for the artist. The resulting works will be exhibited at the Cairns Art Gallery in 2027.
This project has been developed in partnership with Peggy Kasabad Lane and Dr Bianca Beetson, Queensland Museum, Brisbane and Kalkani Choolburra, Australian Museum, Sydney.
Erica Muriata “Jawun” 2025 | Courtesy of the artist and Vivien Andersen Gallery | Cairns Art Gallery exhibition installation, May 2026
Barbara Dover
Julie Poulsen and
Jennifer Valmadre
Three established Cairns-based artists, Barbara Dover, Julie Poulsen and Jennifer Valmadre have come together to produce new works, including their first collaborative works which will be showcased in their 2026 exhibition, “The Paradox of Things”.
For decades, the three artists have shared experiences as art teachers at TAFE Queensland, in Cairns, and as established artists they have played a central role in developing and shaping the Cairns contemporary arts community.
“The Paradox of Things” is the artists’ first collaborative exhibition and showcases works they have collectively and individually created as the result of shared interests in experimentation with new materials, media and creative process.
Their works draw on found objects and use inventive processes to explore notions of contradiction and inconsistency. The resulting works are ambiguous and paradoxical, defying logic through material experimentation, and the use of unconventional methods of display and creation.
With the financial support of the Double R Arts Foundation, the Gallery has produced a comprehensive exhibition publication and has presented a public program that together celebrate and showcase the combined legacy of the artists as teachers and mentors of upcoming generations of artists. In addition to artist talks and school programs, the artists will conduct a half-day panel discussion in partnership with TAFE Queensland that brings together alumni students who have pursued creative and artistic careers across the region and beyond. Topics explored include intergenerational conversations about art practice, notions of place and identity, and what it means to learn from and be an artist.
“The Paradox of Things” and the supporting public programs invite audiences of all ages to take a journey of discovery, and explore immersive new works that question, challenge and surprise.
“The Paradox of Things”, Mulgrave Building, Cairns Art Gallery Precinct (19 September – 28 November 2026)
2024|2025
Maljah
Cathy Snow
Maljah Cathy Snow was born in 1954 in Normanton, Far North Queensland. Her Clan and Language group is Gkuthaarn. Through her paintings and works on paper Cathy shares traditional stories and information about the plants, fruits, flowers, and marine life that abound on and around the Country where she grew up.
With the financial support of the Double R Arts Foundation, Cathy learned techniques to translate her works on paper into repeat patterns for digital printing on textile lengths. This new skill encouraged the artist to experiment with the use of composition and colour, and 12 of her new textile works were showcased in a solo exhibition at the Cairns Art Gallery, BARRLIN – Wet Ground (28 June – 14 September 2025).
Maljah Cathy Snow “BARRLIN – We ground” exhibition installation, Cairns Art Gallery, 2025
Maljah Cathy Snow “Wild Onion” 2024 | Commissioned by Cairns Art Gallery
Christopher Bassi “New Monument” 2024 | Courtesy of Ames Yavuz Gallery
Christopher
Bassi
Christopher Bassi was born in 1990 in Brisbane. He lives and works on Yuggera and Turrbal Country (Meanjin, Brisbane).
With the financial support of the Double R Arts Foundation, Christopher travelled to the Torres Strait Islands to undertake research for a new body of work that was exhibited at the Cairns Art Gallery (10 June – 7 September 2025).
Titled Notes for a Palm Sermon the exhibition explored religious traditions of the Torres Strait, and the significance of oral transmission of knowledge across generations. His paintings featured familiar Torres Strait motifs – banana flowers, mangrove seed ponds and other fruit and flowers – but painted in the style of old masters such as Velázquez and Goya to create a sensorial balance between real and imagined, contemporary and traditional, secular and religious. While deeply personal, works in the exhibition challenged perceptions and understandings of connections to culture, place and history.
Christopher Bassi “Notes for a Palm Sermon” exhibition installation, Cairns Art Gallery, 2025
2023|2024
Heather
Koowootha
Heather Koowootha was born in Yarrabah, Queensland, in 1966, and lives and works in Cairns. Her works are inspired by teachings passed onto her from her mother’s culture, the Yidinji people of Yarrabah, Queensland, and from her father’s culture, the Wik Mungkan people of Aurukun, Queensland.
As a young boy, Heather’s father was taken from his mother in Aurukun and sent to the Normanton Mission, while her mother was similarly taken from her mother and placed in a dormitory in Yarrabah, south of Cairns. Their stories of separation, trauma and dispossession continue to inform the artist’s works.
With the support of the Double R Arts Foundation, Heather created a new body of work for a solo exhibition, Collection in Focus, at the Cairns Art Gallery (29 November 2025 – 8 March 2026).
Heather Wunjarra Koowootha, “Clamshell off the East Coast Regions” 2023. Commissioned by Cairns Art Gallery
Heather Wunjarra Koowootha “Gar Fish” 2024
Jason Wegger “The decline of empire” 2019 | Purchased Cairns Art Gallery
Jason
Wegger
Jason Wegger was born in Cairns where he continues to live and work. Through digital media and graphite drawings he explores the tensions and struggles of contemporary life and culture and presents complex narratives of isolation and dystopia.
In 2023 the Double R Arts Foundation funded a studio residency for the artist that enabled him to produce a series of graphite drawings, presented in a circular format, and foreshadowing the end of the world in ten stages. Jason’s solo exhibition titled ANXIETY, was held at the Cairns Art Gallery (11 January – 2 March 2025).
Jason Wegger “Anxiety” exhibition installation, Cairns Art Gallery, 2025