About Me
I am a descendant of the K/Gamilaroi peoples through my father and have European heritage through my mother, both of which inform my perspective and creative practice.
A recent graduate of the Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art program at QCAD, Griffith University, I am an emerging multidisciplinary artist and Program Officer at Aboriginal Art Co, where I am passionate about supporting the platforming of diverse First Nations voices and stories.
My background in community services supporting young people, shaped by lived experience and family history, continues to ground my commitment to community engagement. I currently extend this through my involvement with the Pumicestone Indigenous Education and Employment Council on Yarun (Bribie Island), where I live.
My creative practice spans printmaking, papermaking, jewellery, sculpture, and installation. Working through material exploration and process, I engage with themes of decolonisation, cultural continuity, and reclamation, often drawing on native grasses as carriers of knowledge and connection to Country.
Artist Biography
Rachel Bywaters is a multidisciplinary artist with cultural connections to Gamilaroi Country, currently living on Kabi Kabi Country and working in Magandjin. Her practice spans printmaking, papermaking, jewellery, sculpture, and installation.
Grounded in lived experience of decolonisation and personal deconstruction, she engages the pushing of materials and processes as an act of resistance to colonial ideologies that have diminished Indigenous ways of being and doing, repositioning and centring First Nations knowledge systems through native grasses as acts of cultural reclamation for her ancestors.
A recent graduate of a Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art with Queensland College of Art and Design at Griffith University, she was the recipient of the 2025 Award for Outstanding Academic Excellence.