Her piece ‘Memory Pool’ was inspired by her childhood in Derby in the state’s North-East and forms part of a larger series set to be exhibited in Sydney next month.

“I have done about 20 peices and to get them framed and freighted up to Sydney was going to be about $10,000 and we were thinking ‘how the hell are we going to do this’ and then I won this prize,” she said.

“I was just like ‘oh my god’, it is such an amazing thing and I was so sure that I wouldn’t win. I am absolutely over the moon, I was so shocked.”

Ms Woodroffe said the work was designed as if the viewer was looking down into a well, as inspired by her life.

“When I was a kid we used to go to this place called the valley pool just a little bit out of Derby, and this was Derby back in the day when it wasn’t famous,” she said.

“I used to swim in this big mysterious pool and I always believed there was something underneath the water.”

The theme for this year’s Bay of Fires Arts Prize was ‘Our Island Inheritance’.

"When the judge was talking about my work she said that I had ticked that box and I had something that was conceptually quite strong,” she said. 

“I have made reference to the fact that it wasn’t just us who lived here but there were others here before the colonials arrived and it’s a story about survival and floating to the surface.”

The art prize was held in conjunction with the Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival at St Helens, which ran over the June long-weekend and included workshops, an arts market and open studios. 

RELATED STORIES: