Having spent the past 20 years tirelessly championing local art, each award helps shine a welcome light on a sector that can be overlooked, especially in turbulent times. At 45, Urquhart has amassed an impressive list of awards and honours, and sat on numerous committees and panels, but for her, recognition comes in small forms as well as large. Providing inspiring learning experiences is central to the gallery’s mission. Recently, at the end of a school tour, a young man claimed it was the best day of his life! “You don’t get much more motivation than that,” she says.

Growing up, music was a bigger presence than art at home, and it was at after-school art classes with Barbara Oliver that Urquhart ‘discovered’ art. But it was not so much the act of creating art as the stories behind works of art that captivated her.

“While I was born and grew up in Cayman, we had family in the UK, and when we would visit every year, I was fascinated by the tangible layers of history that seemed to be around every corner,” she recalls. “I also studied at a school in York that was on top of a Roman burial ground, and there were always active digs happening.”

It was this interest in history and historical objects that put her on a path to museum work: she completed a degree in art history and, several years later, a Master’s in Arts Management.

She is fortunate, she says, to have studied curatorial work at a time when a major shift was occurring. Previously, curators had been primarily responsible for preserving, displaying, and interpreting art and artefacts, and exhibitions were little more than collections with explanatory labels. But in the mid-90s, the whole concept of curating changed. In order to make collections more accessible and interesting to the wider public, exhibitions were being made interactive and experiential.

Curating exhibitions is where Urquhart’s creativity finds its outlet. “It’s a form of storytelling,” she says. “You want to take viewers on a journey, where they engage with a topic, are sometimes provoked and challenged, and where they might leave with a new perspective.”

As Chief Curator, and the only member of the Exhibition Department for many years, she developed the exhibition theme, selected existing works, or commissioned new pieces for it, wrote papers and catalogues, and designed the exhibition and the lighting. More recently, with NGCI and the Curatorial Department expanding, her work has become collaborative, with each project presented by a team. “It’s wonderful to see an interest in curatorial work expanding in Cayman and to be able to work with some really brilliant emerging professionals.”

Since she first joined the NGCI in the early 2000s, Urquhart has curated over 30 exhibition projects, tackling topics ranging from cultural heritage, identity and memory, to climate change and the effects of a global pandemic on our collective conscience.

Exhibitions typically take around 18 months to prepare and design, so at the time of writing, she was working on a mid-career survey show for Nasaria Suckoo-Chollette, winner of the 2019 Biennial, a show on craft and design in Cayman, three smaller pop-up shows, plus reactivating the Art at the Airport programme.

Of course, curating exhibitions is only one small part of Urquhart’s work, and as the organisation continues to grow, she will hand over more of the curatorial work, freeing her up to focus on the ‘big picture’. A strategist, a planner and a leader, she is happiest when solving problems and filling gaps, she says.

On any given day, she might spend time designing and researching programming, supporting the work of NGCI’s various departments, consulting for government and the private sector, writing papers and books on the art history of the Cayman Islands, presenting internationally, working with local artisans whose crafts are sold in the museum shop, and mentoring young people wanting to pursue a career in the arts. It is nothing if not varied.

And that is just in her role at the Gallery. Her advocacy for art and artists extends far beyond its walls. She has also spent considerable time and energy working to put Caymanian art on the map at a regional level and ensure it is part of the cultural dialogue. From 2017 to 2020, she served as president of the Museums Association of the Caribbean (she remains on the Board and Executive Committee), travelling widely in the region, visiting her museum counterparts in other jurisdictions, and strengthening links between cultural institutions.

As if her plate were not already full, last year, she founded another initiative independent of the gallery. Lockdown had highlighted an issue she had long been aware of: that Cayman lacked any kind of arts association or platform for artists to sell their work. (NGCI, she points out, is a museum in that it serves as a repository for the nation’s art, not a commercial art gallery, and it does not sell or promote art or represent any particular artist.)

And so, she created one: Cayman Art Week is modelled on art weeks held in large cities around the world and takes place over five days, focusing on a different district each day.  A series of open studios and gallery visits are held with the ultimate intent of connecting creators with collectors and providing artists with the commercial support they need. She is currently working to prepare the second edition of Cayman Art Week, which takes place June 22–26.

Now, seconded to the CNCF for six months, she will be steering the organisation’s redevelopment and looking at how the two institutions – NGCI and CNCF – can be better aligned. Whatever she is working on, it all comes down to a single purpose: preserving, promoting, and developing the art and culture of the Cayman Islands.

In an increasingly globalised world, this inevitably means safeguarding Cayman’s unique heritage. But at the same time, it is essential to also make room for new forms of artistic expression – be it music, dance, film, fashion, the creative industries, or art. The key going forward, she says, is to figure out how both traditional and contemporary forms of art and culture can be equally respected and supported.