AFTER the death of her daughter in 2020, renowned local artist Judy Antill is doing good in her memory by raising money for a cause near to her heart.

Ms Antill, well known particularly for her paintings of the region’s coastline, moved with her family to the area when her daughter Natasha O’Brien, was three years old.

She describes Tash, as she was known to most, as a bright, interesting and very talented child who “by grade 4 had read every book in the Portland North Primary school library,” and would no doubt be remembered by those who knew her from her time in Portland.

“She was just the sweetest natured child and then her sense of humour was extraordinary as well, she would entertain crowds of people very easily from when she was very small.”

Tash went on to move to Melbourne and study degrees in Science and Bio Engineering at Monash, Swinburne and Melbourne Universities. 

In 2019 while working at St Vincent’s lab in Melbourne as an honours student her paper ‘Layer-by layer: The case for 3D bioprinting neurons to create patient-specific epilepsy models’ was published, a rare achievement for an honours student.

As well as being obviously very academic, Ms Antill says Tash at the same time was very creative, and had some serious artistic talent.

“She was always very talented, but didn’t always think she was good enough, which is why I think in part she went down the science pathway, but she really was quite an excellent artist, she’s had works shown at Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne, and she had an offer at one point to have an exhibition in New York.”

Processing the loss of her 31-year-old daughter was particularly difficult for Ms Antill, and her two sons, as it happened when pandemic restrictions were in full swing, meaning the family were finally able to hold a celebration of Tash’s life in Melbourne last May, by which time Ms Antill said she had been able to sort through a lot of her daughter’s belongings.

Among them she found a whole range of drawings, paintings, and sketches that Tash had made, there were fashion design sketches, elaborate comics, and particularly prominent were drawings of cats that date back to when she was young.

“When we had the celebration for Tash, we have quite a few friends who are musicians and they put on an amazing tribute concert, so as a token of our appreciation, we made prints of the drawings and gifted them each one,” Ms Antill said.

“After this, we heard from quite a few other friends who were asking to buy a print.”

From there, Ms Antill said she and her sons Morgan and Adrian, very naturally developed the idea into producing a limited run of prints of eight of her drawings, to sell to raise money for endometriosis research.

For several years prior to her death, Tash suffered from the debilitating effects of endometriosis, a condition that is only now being recognized for the devastating effects it inflicts on its sufferers.

The disease affects 1 in 9 Australian women, according to Endometriosis Australia, it causes tissue similar to the lining of the uterus to grow in other parts of the body and can cause severe pain, fatigue, depression, anxiety, and infertility.

Ms Antill is set up in 17A Julia Street Portland for the rest of the month selling her own work, as well as Tash’s A4 prints, for $50, with all proceeds of the prints going directly to a specifically designed laboratory to study endometriosis recently set up by Melbourne’s Epworth Hospital.

“The whole point of this exercise to raise awareness for endometriosis.

“It really affects the quality of people’s lives, it caused Tash a lot of pain and discomfort so if we can help other people to not go through that, it’s a good legacy,” Ms Antill said.