City of Moreton Bay
Moreton Bay City Council Art Prize — 2026
Sun-Kissed Chestnut
Acrylic on canvas — 🏆 FIRST PLACE WINNER Beautifully Tangled series
Hair magnified until it becomes landscape. Chestnut and copper strands sweep and fold like shifting terrain — hyperreal in precision, meditative in feeling. Part of Rachel's ongoing Beautifully Tangled series, which explores hair as both intimate trace and expansive subject.
Artist's statement
What is usually peripheral is brought forward — asking the viewer to pause within subtle sensations of movement, memory, and presence. Where the familiar transforms into something vast, meditative, and quietly disorienting.
Moreton Bay Regional Art Prize — 2025
Basilea
Acrylic on canvas — 3rd Place Winner
Basilea is a portrait of local farmer Sarah Heath of Basilea Living Herbs and Edible Flowers — a woman whose dedication to growing and sharing brings colour and life to the Moreton Bay community. Rachel captured not just Sarah's likeness but the quiet joy she radiates, surrounding her in the flowers that have become her signature.
Placed 3rd among a field of esteemed artists and works, the recognition felt especially meaningful — a painting rooted in local identity, honoured by the very community it celebrates.
Judge's notes
Rachel South's acrylic portrait of local farmer Sarah Heath is commendable for its local relevance, likeness and creativity. The detailed rendering and thoughtful composition captures Sarah's enthusiasm for the natural world and the joy she brings to her community. The flowers are not just decoration; they symbolise cycles of life and care. A deeply moving and technically accomplished work.
— Madeline Brewer, Judge
Moreton Bay Regional Art Prize — 2024
Where the Wild Things Grow
Self portrait — acrylic on canvas, 101.5 × 121.5 × 3.5 cm — Finalist
A self portrait rooted in memory and identity. Rachel turned the lens inward — tracing the arc from a Brisbane childhood spent watching the world from a bush-lined window, to an artistic practice built on quiet determination and a belief in the healing power of the visual.
The painting sits at the intersection of autobiography and landscape, exploring what it means to grow into your authentic self when the path was never supposed to exist.
Artist's statement
Once I was a child with an endless imagination — growing up in suburban Brisbane, watching the world from windows overlooking the bush. Observers observing.
For a long time, being an artist wasn't on anyone's list. Determined to prove my purpose, I kept painting — and somewhere in that persistence, I found my story. The flow of paint. Colour giving life to form. Art as a tool for healing, awareness and voice.
This is how I became my authentic self — an Australian woman using the visual to make the world a better place.
Moreton Bay Regional Art Prize — 2023
Maggie
Acrylic on canvas with gold leaf — Finalist
Maggie is an immersive celebration of the Australian landscape — a swirling composition of deep cobalt and midnight blue, woven through with magpies in flight, native bees, eucalyptus blossoms, wild berries, and a solitary blue lotus rising from still water. A gold soundwave cuts across the horizon, grounding the painting in something felt as much as seen.
At its centre, a pair of lips — open, present, alive — surrounded by the creatures and flora of the Moreton Bay region. The work is at once portrait and ecosystem, a love letter to place rendered in paint and gold.
Selected as a finalist in the 2023 Moreton Bay Art Prize, Maggie was exhibited as part of a beautifully curated showcase of local artists at Pine Rivers Art Gallery.
Art @ Large
Foreshore Footpaths
'Saltation'
Nine local artists were commissioned to transform nine sections of concrete footpath along the Moreton Bay foreshore — from Bongaree to Woody Point — into bold vinyl public artworks spanning 25 metres each.
Artists responded to three curatorial themes drawn from life on the bay:
Natural foreshore environmentsBuilt environments near the foreshoreExperiences of the bay
Rachel was selected to contribute one of the nine semi-permanent footpath artworks — her work was apart of this ongoing opportunity for moreton bay artists.
Art @ Large
Outdoor Gallery
'Residents of Moreton'
From 7 May to 5 June 2022, six local artists brought colour and scale to the streets of the Moreton Bay Region. Twelve vinyl banners — two per artwork — were installed across the region's busiest roads, turning high-traffic corridors into a living, public gallery.
The Outdoor Gallery launched as a new initiative of the 2022 Moreton Bay Region Art Prize, giving artists the rare opportunity to see their work experienced by thousands of locals and visitors every day.
6 artists12 banners displayedMay – June 2022
Rachel was selected as a finalist for the Outdoor Gallery with her painting Residents of Moreton — displayed on vinyl banners across the region for the full duration of the exhibition.
