Annual community exhibition SAM Open 2023: Home now showing at Shepparton Art Museum.

SAM Open 2023, Shepparton Art Museum’s (SAM) annual open-call group exhibition, opened in the museum’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery on Saturday 29 April. The callout for entries to the exhibition resulted in 83 submissions from artists and creatives living or working in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions. All 83 entries are displayed in the exhibition, with each work reflecting the artists’ unique responses to the theme of ‘home’.

SAM Open celebrates and showcases the creativity of the artistic community across the Goulburn Valley and the Hume Regions. The works on display span an array of styles and approaches, including landscapes, portraiture and sculpture.

SAM Open provides an opportunity to bring together local practitioners to share their creativity with audiences and presents their work in dialogue with exhibitions by nationally recognised Australian artists. The featured works in SAM Open 2023: Home explore the theme through domestic objects and spaces, nature, pets, and people. The range of perspectives represented creates opportunities for viewers to reflect on their impression of home, connecting them to ideas that resonate with or are different to their own experience of what ‘home’ is.

Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the exhibition:

“It has been wonderful to see such a diversity of responses to ‘Home.’ Some common themes emerge but are all expressed through a variety of techniques and styles – there really is something for everyone. This show is beautiful snapshot of the creativity of our community.”

Later in the year, annual exhibitions SAM EOI and SAM Spotlight will feature in the Community Gallery. SAM EOI, an annual opportunity for artists, curators, creative practitioners and community groups to propose and present an exhibition, will feature the work of Echuca-based artist collective Tuesday Junction in July 2023 following their successful proposal. In October, SAM Spotlight, an annual paid solo exhibition opportunity for emerging artists in the region, will feature a new body of work from Echuca-based artist Ellen Lee following her successful application.

SAM Open 2023: Home will be showing at Shepparton Art Museum from 29 April until 16 July 2023.