Arts OutWest supports or coordinates a number of creative residencies in the NSW Central West.
See the project links below for details on each.
You can support our residency programs (including the Tracy Sorensen Emerging Writers Residency) with a tax deductible donation to the Arts OutWest Cultural Fund.
Artist in residence, Portland
Artist residencies
Artist residency exchange
Community art making day
Supporting writers
updates
Sat 24 October. The creative precinct will be open to the public to explore and draw its extraordinary natural and industrial settings.
Kids – join artist Alice Martin in a 1.5hr drawing workshop.
With a Squatter’s Residency at The Foundations Portland on the agenda for Jessica Ann Leffley, a Central West based Wiradjuri artist, the opportunity arose to lead two workshops at St Josephs Catholic Primary School in Portland this August 2026. With generosity and no doubt much flapping behind the scenes, she turned up prepped with materials and Bird Girl Creations cut-out-bird-template-pieces to start the students soaring from the get-go.
That Sarah Randall found time to lap up plein air site offerings during weekends at The Squatter’s Residency in 2025 and 2026 is testament to her focused work ethic.
The year 11 and 12 art students of Kelso High School don’t skip a beat in their engagement and questioning of Harrie Fasher’s process, logistics, themes and more during their excursion to The Foundations, Portland in June 2026.
Jane Alexander has spent May 2026 immersed in experimentation at The Squatter’s Cottage, The Foundations, Portland. Working across painting, drawing, and sculpture during her Squatter’s Residency, Jane has embraced having the time and space to trial some cold wax in her paintings for the first time.
Donate now. Launched at Bathurst Writers’ and Readers’ Festival a new fund, to support an emerging writer, was launched in memory of the late Bathurst writer Tracy Sorensen.
Closes Friday 5 June 2026.
Arts OutWest and South East Arts are calling for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visual artists to apply for a cross‑regional artist residency program, Tidal Exchange.
An excellent selection of artists applied for the first Creative Residencies Out West (CROW), offered in partnership with Outback Arts and West Darling Arts. Three artists from across the three regions will spend at least two weeks in a neighbouring region to develop new creative work and deliver a activity with their host community.
Below is a photographic essay by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove of Harrie Fasher’s studio activity in the lead up to Harrie Fasher’s solo exhibition Before Dawn at Orange Regional Gallery 2025/26.
Brad Hammond Director of Orange Regional Gallery said at the opening of Before Dawn a solo exhibition by Harrie Fasher at Orange Regional Gallery, that her work is “ambitious, extraordinary and personal”. She “takes risks and brings people along” in a “process where everything is about to completely and radically change”. Her work “is about transformation”.
With heartfelt responsibility to country, Annemaree Dalziel and Lizzie Buckmaster Dove walked gently on The Foundations site in November 2025 as part of their shared residency at The Squatter’s Cottage.
3D cardboard sculptures were kid-handled into shape with nuts and bolts, paper fasteners, cloth tape and scissors by students at Portland Central School in workshops led by Em Ingram Shute this February 2026.
A lemon is on the wall, in all its glory. It could not be more in-place on the floral wallpaper of The Squatter’s studio whilst Jaq Davies is the Artist in Residence. During her February 2026 residency, Jaq has orchestrated an eclectic amalgamation of bits and bobs to extend from and converse with her paintings and drawings on paper pinned here, there and everywhere.
Expressions of interest close 30 March 2026.
Calling for Aboriginal artist/s from the Central West to undertake a paid residency in the far west/north-west of NSW
Fran O’Neill activated The Administration Building studio at The Foundations during her Squatter’s Residency, returning in January 2026 with Inga Dalrymple and Cat Mills.
Cat Mills activated The Powerhouse at The Foundations during her Squatter’s Residency, returning in January 2026 with Fran O’Neill and Inga Dalrymple.
Inga Dalrymple activated The Bathhouse studio at The Foundations during her Squatter’s Residency, returning in January 2026 with Fran O’Neill and Cat Mills.
This week the year 7s and Year 8s at Portland Central School were totally engaged making bangles with raffia whilst yarning away with each other and Ronda Sharpe, Wiradjuri environmental artist.
Ellen Ferrier has been the recipient of The Foundations Mentorship coupled with an Artist-in-Residence at The Bathhouse. The Foundations, Portland supported by Harrie Fasher Studios from May – November 2025.
The Foundations – Portland, Harrie Fasher Studio and Arts OutWest teamed up at the National Art School (NAS) Master of Fine Art (MFA) preview event of The Postgrad Show 2025. Martin and Monica O’Connell, Rich and Kellie Evans, Martin John Oldfield and Nic Mason experienced the work curated across the campus and talked with MFA Alumni at this celebratory exhibition. It is clear; in selecting a 2025 recipient of The Foundations Squatter’s Residency Award, the team cannot go wrong as the work of this cohort is of an exceptional standard. This task will not be easy.
Sketch after sketch of figurative contemplations line the walls at The Squatter’s Cottage this August 2025. Tilly Lees has been utilising drawing as a process to think about what she might create next and why. She has been reading stacks and scrawling pages of notes in her visual art diaries.
Our visual artists networking day went on an excursion to Portland to visit an exhibition and artist studios.
Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 November 2025.
Featuring 18 locations, artists, opening their studios just once a year.
Part rock animator, part philosopher, part blacksmith, and fully joyful, Will Maguire is a wholesome treasure to be around. And around he was found in the depths of Harrie Fasher’s studio with the likes of artists Martin John Oldfield, Ellen Ferrier and Koichi Ishino during his July 2025 Squatter’s Cottage residency.
It’s Makers Month at the Foundations, Portland, throughout October 2025 and Arts OutWest is involved in all kinds of ways.
We then start November participating in the popular Lithgow Arts Trail.
October 2025. This exhibition features 13 artists who are all associated with The Squatter’s Artist in Residence program held at The Foundations at Portland in the NSW Central West. It’s part of the new Makers Month at The Foundations.
The work of a talented cohort of The Foundations, Portland regulars is on show in their current exhibition ‘Creative Foundations’ which opened 15 August at Blue Mountains Cultural Centre in Katoomba.
The fire crackles, the tea flows, and the treats are plentiful. On this frosty June Tuesday, Quan Zhu Ma’s hospitality is second-to-none at his Squatter’s Cottage residency.
Returning to the Squat in May 2025, this time Penelope McKeown has been spending time painting and drawing inside with watercolour, gouache and oils. She has been activating the studio room, the studio/bed large room and the sunroom. Her paintings and drawings being created at The Squat are extending from her recent plein air works created in her south coast Lilli Pilli studio.
In early May 2025 about 40, year 9 and 10 Visual Arts students from Scots All Saint’s College found themselves in Harrie Fasher’s Foundry at The Foundations, Portland. They came on a bus with their art diaries and three teachers all prepped for a big day out.
Experimental photographic chemistry is in the making. Simone Darcy, the Squatter’s Artist in Residence in April through to early May, has dived deep into the Phytogram process. She has been using her own non-toxic plant-based developer and working directly onto 120mm and 4×5 film.
Activating the outside room of The Squatter’s Cottage, Ken Hutchinson has been sculpting Chillagoe marble from Queensland during his residency at The Foundations, Portland in March 2025. On seeing the fines peppered all over him from this marble action adventure, Ken commented that he’s actually never been cleaner with the “killer shower” at The Squat. We too can attest that it is a good one.
Paints and painting materials are clustered in piles at The Squatter’s Cottage, whilst Brenda Stace Chat is going back and forth talking about her large and small works spread across the walls and floor of the Studio Room. Bits of discarded thick fishing net rope picked up in Normandy, France and her works in progress from her recent residency at Lighthouse Arts in Newcastle are clearly ingredients for what is being created by her in her March 2025 at The Squat.
Huge paintings have been created at The Squatter’s Residency cottage in February 2025. Robbie Flowers with enthusiastic four-legged art friend Dondi by her side (named after renowned 1970’s NY Subway artist … who conversely was named after the comic strip of the same name) has been abstracting away using watery references of her earlier paintings.
Cate McCarthy’s 2025 artist residency at The Squatter’s Residency, The Foundations, Portland has seen her focusing on her arts practice creating drawings, paintings and sculptures.
From 2025 Arts OutWest will coordinate The Squatter’s Residency, The Foundations, Portland. January’s artists were Fran O’Neil, Inga Dalrymple and Cat Mills.