Heal-All
Rebekah Walkarden
- Sitter: Dr Maarit Harden
- Medium: Oil on dress making fabric
- Dimensions: 100cm x 96cm
- Representation: This artist represents themselves
- Categories: Female artist
2026 Sylvia Jones Prize for Women Artists
Proudly supported by
Clem Jones Foundation
About the artwork
Dr Maarit Harden is a Brisbane-based GP, business owner, writer and mother who emigrated from Finland to Australia as a child, dedicating her adult life to helping others. The artist is Harden’s daughter, Rebekah Walkarden.
A few years ago, Walkarden began helping her mother write her autobiography and came to understand the depth of hardship she had carried from childhood. Painted on dressmaking fabric, the domestic setting references the traditional gender roles Harden navigated in pursuit of a career.
At its heart, this is a portrait about family, love and understanding. Walkarden has captured Harden dancing in her kitchen, a representation of joy rediscovered, of a childlike freedom she was forced to grow out of too soon. Tucked quietly among the cups and plates are a white spider, a white flower and a white moth, a nod to Robert Frost’s poem Design, whose themes of chance and fragility lend the work its name.
About the artist
Rebekah Walkarden is an emerging multidisciplinary artist and curator currently completing her Fine Art degree at Queensland College of Art and Design. Working across fabric, glass, metal and found objects, her practice explores themes of maternal lineage, memory and family. She is the founder of Limestone Gallery and Studios and a recipient of Ipswich Art Workshop Residency.
Judges Notes
Rebekah Walkardon’s portrait of Dr Marit Harding is a fascinating approach to portraiture that explores multiple media and deliberately complicates the image making through collage as both an idea and a process. What results is an image that is detailed and complex in its composition, almost as if we are seeing the flickering after images of the subject.
I particularly like the reflection in the mirror rendered with blue and yellow played fabric against the pink and white fabric of the presumably tiled kitchen wall.The artist is in the early stages of her career and this bold engaging and accessible portrait promises some very exciting things to come.
Jonathan McBurnie
Director, Queen Victoria Museum and Gallery (Launceston)
Chief Judge 2026
