SAM names 2026 Community Gallery exhibiting artists
27 November 2025
Shepparton Art Museum announces Fran O’Neill and Simeon Ayres as 2026 Community Gallery artists.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to announce the selection of Fran O’Neill and Simeon Ayres as the 2026 exhibiting artists of SAM Selects and SAM Spotlight respectively. The artists were selected following an open call out and application process, which garnered 23 applications collectively.
In March 2026, Fran O’Neill will present a selection of large-scale abstract oil paintings in SAM’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery for her SAM Selects exhibition. Entitled On the Move, O’Neill’s painting practice features rich colours and sinuous gestures that evoke images of the land’s mineral textures. Born in Wangaratta and now based in Cheshunt, O’Neill comes to the Community Gallery with an extensive exhibition history, including international participation.
O’Neill says of her selection:
“I feel deeply honoured and incredibly excited to have the opportunity to exhibit my artworks as part of SAM Selects in 2026. My paintings are, in many ways, a reflection of the landscape and community that surround me—a response to the beauty, character, and sense of place that I’m lucky to call home.
I am genuinely looking forward to becoming part of the extraordinary creative community that SAM has cultivated for Shepparton and the wider region. SAM is an inspiring and generous space, and I’m excited to work alongside Caroline Esbenshade and Danny Lacy to experience how the gallery environment will elevate my work, and to meet members of the community who make this region so unique and special.”
SAM Spotlight 2026 artist Simeon Ayres will be developing a new project entitled Bringing Odysseus Home, which will feature visual and written works that explore Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey through the lens of our region. Based on the slopes of Mount Wombat in the Strathbogie Ranges, Ayres is an emerging artist employing maps and pictorial landscapes as a means of making sense of the world, giving form to what is felt but not seen.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the selection:
“When evaluating applications this year, we were looking at what projects would best complement the broader 2026 curatorial program and best suit the space. The applications provided us options not only for the Community Gallery, but also for other programs and spaces at SAM, allowing us to create new opportunities to embed community voices and practices into SAM’s overall program.
I’m really excited to be presenting O’Neill’s and Ayres’ work in the Community Gallery. I think audiences will really resonate with O’Neill’s jewel toned pieces and enjoy the immersive experience the scale of her work creates. I’m looking forward to working with Ayres over the coming months and seeing the artworks that result from his exploration of recounting Homer’s The Odyssey through his practice.”
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Pictured, L-R: SAM Selects 2026 artist Fran O’Neill and SAM Spotlight 2026 artist Simeon Ayres. Images courtesy of the artists.
About the artists:
Fran O’Neill is an Australian-born abstract painter whose large-scale, gestural canvases transform memory and sensation into dynamic fields of luminous colour. Born in Wangaratta, Victoria, she established a significant career in the United States—particularly in New York— where her vibrant works garnered critical praise, before returning to live and work in Cheshunt, northeastern Victoria. While based in Australia, she continues to maintain a global presence, exhibiting regularly across Australia and North America.
Simeon Ayres is an emerging artist based on Taungurung Country in the Strathbogie Ranges. A visual artist and writer, Ayres’ practice centres around mapmaking, drawing out deep stories of place. As a self-taught artist he has developed his own techniques and methods to represent what he feels and sees. For several years Ayres has created commissions for private clients, mapping their country in his style. Ayres has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions across regional Victoria, including a solo exhibition at Benalla Art Gallery in early 2025.
About SAM Selects:
The SAM Selects exhibition program allows artists, creatives, curators, and community groups to submit a recent creative project to be exhibited in SAM’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery.
About SAM Spotlight:
SAM Spotlight is an annual paid opportunity for an emerging solo artist based in the Goulburn Valley and Hume region to work closely with the SAM Curator – Community to develop a new body of work for exhibition over 12 months.
About SAM:
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
Serving as a dynamic cultural and community hub for the Greater Shepparton region, SAM is one of Australia’s leading regional art museums and the newest purpose-built collecting institution in regional Victoria. SAM houses one of the nation’s most significant collections of Australian ceramics and regional holdings of South Eastern Indigenous Art, and presents an inclusive museum experience that inspires creativity, forges meaningful connections, and celebrates the unique stories of our region.
Through its programs, events, collection, and temporary exhibitions, SAM creates opportunities for artists and creatives to engage audiences with contemporary ideas and issues, allowing the stories of our country’s ancient cultures and contemporary multicultural Australia to be discovered and exchanged.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Communications Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Local artist Kat Parker to present new solo exhibition in SAM’s Community Gallery from 15 November 2025.
12 November 2025
New solo exhibition from local artist Kat Parker to open in Shepparton Art Museum’s Community Gallery on 15 November 2025.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is pleased to present a new solo exhibition from local artist Kat Parker in the museum’s Hugh D.T Williamson Community Gallery on 15 November.
Lament – A memorial of Australian extinction features a new series of Parker’s sculptures and prints depicting little-known Australian species lost to extinction. Based in Shepparton, Parker is an emerging artist working in the field of printmaking who imbues her intricate artworks with a deep care for ecology and nature. Lament marks the first solo exhibition for Parker after a series of features in group exhibitions, including SAM Fresh 2024 and SAM Open 2025.
With a body of work developed over the past 12 months, Lament explores the twofold tragedy of Australia’s unfortunate legacy of high animal extinction rates and the void left by these lost species in our ecosystem and in our collective memory.
Included among Parker’s meticulously crafted sculptures are reconstructions of the Paradise Parrot, last seen in 1927; the Lesser Bilby, not seen since the 1960s; and the Northern Pig-Footed Bandicoot, lost to altered habitats and preyed on by introduced predators. Each of Parker’s sculptures are created from layers of linocuts printed onto repurposed paper, and measure to the real-life scale of the animals, with two-dimensional, annotated prints of each animal lining the walls of the gallery drawing out their individual stories.
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator - Community says of Parker’s exhibition:
“A lot of artists respond to climate change and humanity’s impact on the environment, but few engage with the specifics as deeply as Kat Parker does—there's an enormous amount of research and sensitivity that underpins her work.
Handling the pieces—which are life-sized—can be quite eerie; it’s like paper taxidermy. But when I realise what I hold in my hands, what audiences will be seeing, it really hits home that this is perhaps the closest we’ll ever come to experiencing these animals. It transforms a fact you might read in a history or biology textbook into something tangible and sorrowful.
Lament is a sharing of these species’ extinction, and a call to action—to be more aware of the impacts we each, individually and collectively, have on the world around us.”
An artist talk with Kat Parker exploring the exhibition will be held at SAM on Saturday 6 December at 1.30pm. Registrations to the free event can be made via Humanitix: https://events.humanitix.com/sam-talks-kat-parker
Lament – A memorial of Australian extinction will be on display at SAM in the Hugh D.T. Williamson Community Gallery from 15 November until mid-March 2026.
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About the artist:
Kat Parker is an emerging artist based in Shepparton. In 2021, she graduated from RMIT with a Bachelor of Fine Art, specialising in printmaking. Parker’s practice focuses on the dysfunctional relationship humanity has with nature, with a particular interest in promoting the overlooked aspects of our environment, especially unremarkable animals and extinctions. Her practice aims to encourage an appreciation for, and love of, nature through printmaking and paper art processes. Parker’s artworks have recently been included in the Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize at South Australian Museum, Not Your Kitchen Lino at Burrinja Cultural Centre, Fresh 2024 at Shepparton Art Museum and Geelong Art Gallery’s Acquisitive Print Awards.
About SAM:
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
Serving as a dynamic cultural and community hub for the Greater Shepparton region, SAM is one of Australia’s leading regional art museums and the newest purpose-built collecting institution in regional Victoria. SAM houses one of the nation’s most significant collections of Australian ceramics and regional holdings of South Eastern Indigenous Art, and presents an inclusive museum experience that inspires creativity, forges meaningful connections, and celebrates the unique stories of our region.
Through its programs, events, collection, and temporary exhibitions, SAM creates opportunities for artists and creatives to engage audiences with contemporary ideas and issues, allowing the stories of our country’s ancient cultures and contemporary multicultural Australia to be discovered and exchanged.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, Communications Officer, SAM
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Winners of SAM Open 2025 People's Choice Award announced
7 November 2025
Shepparton Art Museum announces winning artists of SAM Open 2025 People’s Choice Award
Shepparton Art Museum is pleased to announce artists Valerie Callister and Lehansa Samranayake as the adult and youth winners of the SAM Open 2025 People’s Choice Award. The winners of the awards were announced at the museum on Friday 31 October during the official exhibition celebration, which included remarks from SAM Curator – Community Caroline Esbenshade.
Both artists’ winning entries have been on display in the SAM Community Gallery as part of the SAM Open 2025 exhibition, an annual, open-call group exhibition for local creatives aged 16 and over living, working, or studying in the Goulburn Valley and Hume regions. Voting in the People’s Choice Award was open throughout duration of the exhibition to visitors, who could cast a vote for one artwork out of the 66 on display.
An intricate textile work, Valerie Callister’s winning entry Mycelial Threads draws inspiration from photographs captured during the artist’s travels to celebrate the many forms of fungi in our landscape. Through her detailed embroidery, Callister mirrors the complexity of fungal structures and their connectedness with their surrounds.
Artist Lehansa Samaranayake’s touching self-portrait Bear Hugs From A Distance earned her the People’s Choice Award in the under-25’s category. Emerging as a promising young creative talent, Samaranayake’s deftly executed painting captures her yearning to embrace a long-distance friend, with a teddy bear standing in her place until their next meeting.
Left image: SAM Open People's Choice Award winner Valerie Callister with her artwork Mycelium Threads; right image: SAM Open People's Choice Award winner (under 25's category) Lehansa Samaranayake with her artwork Bear Hugs From A Distance. Photos: Shepparton Art Museum
Caroline Esbenshade, SAM Curator – Community, says of the award winners:
“We had some great feedback comments in this year’s votes for People’s Choice, mainly wishing they could vote for more than one work! Both works were praised for their technical skill, uniqueness, and tactile quality.
Samaranayake’s skill in rendering the teddy bear in oil paint creates a masterful illusion where, if only we could touch, it our hands would be met with the soft nap and hard resin of the plush toy. It also inspires just a twinge of tightening in the chest for loved ones we wish we could hold.
Similarly, through different textile fibres Callister creates that unique texture only mushrooms seem to have for several different fungi, and through their presentation we are transported to the forest floor through each vignette. You can almost smell wet leaves and moss.”
SAM Open 2025 is on display at SAM until Sunday 9 November.
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Top image, L-R: SAM Open 2025 People’s Choice Award winner Valerie Callister, SAM Curator – Community Caroline Esbenshade, and SAM Open 2025 People’s Choice Award Winner (under-25’s category) Lehansa Samaranayake. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum
About SAM:
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) is located on Yorta Yorta Country, Shepparton, Victoria.
As a leading Australian regional art museum, SAM showcases its exhibitions and collections in new and exciting ways, creating a welcoming, inclusive, and engaging space for all visitors.
Recognised for its significant Australian ceramics collection and nationally significant collection of Indigenous art, SAM’s programming is designed to be locally relevant and engages with global contemporary ideas. Through its exhibitions, collection, programs and events, SAM creates a place where art helps us to better understand the ancient cultures of this country and contemporary multicultural Australia.
Media enquiries, please contact: Mikela Guseli, SAM Communications Officer.
p: (03) 4804 5009 e: mguseli@sheppartonartmuseum.com.au
Annual art prize and scholarship, The Urbach, now inviting applications for 2026 program
6 November 2025
Victorian artists invited to apply for The 2026 Urbach Landscape Prize and Studio Scholarship.
Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) invites Victorian-based artists to apply for the 2026 Theodore Urbach Landscape Prize and Studio Scholarship (“The Urbach”). Applications for the $10,000 prize and scholarship encouraging explorations in the field Australian landscape painting are currently open and will close on 15 December 2025.
Awarded to an individual Victorian-based artist working in the field of Australian landscape painting, The Urbach celebrates the creative process and acknowledges that artists need time and space to further their creative practice. The awarded artist will receive a $5,000 cash prize and a scholarship stipend of $5,000 to support them as they undertake the three-month, non-residential scholarship at SAM’s onsite artist studio from 3 March to 3 June 2026. In addition to the first prize, two runners-up will each be awarded a $2,500 prize in recognition of their time and commitment in developing their applications.
In 2025, The Urbach was awarded to artist Anthea Kemp, who used the scholarship period to volunteer and undertake research at the Euroa Arboretum, learning first-hand about their conservation programs, the flora of the region, and their work with the Goulburn Broken Indigenous Seedbank, producing gouache studies and small oil paint sketches on-site at the Arboretum that were then developed into larger paintings in the SAM Artist Studio.
When reflecting on the experience of the Urbach, Kemp says:
“The special thing about the Urbach is the proximity to SAM and the SAM team. Working in a studio that is physically part of the museum created an affirming and dynamic space for me to work in. I could view artworks and then return to the studio with fresh insight, while also engaging with staff across departments — from curatorial and exhibitions management to marketing and communications. It’s an incredible opportunity and a rare insight into the workings of a major cultural institution for a practicing artist.
“My advice for artists considering applying is to make the most of the incredible support the SAM team offers throughout the application process. It’s rare to receive this level of guidance and feedback, and I highly recommend taking full advantage of it — not only for this opportunity, but as valuable insight you can carry into future applications as well.”
The Urbach program is generously supported by the Theodore Urbach Landscape Painting Scholarship and Prize Charitable Trust, managed by Equity Trustees. The trust, established through the will of late philanthropist and arts patron Theodore Urbach, was designed to provide prizes and scholarship opportunities to benefit artists and students working in the field of Australian landscape painting.
Online applications to The Urbach close on 15 December 2025. To view the full eligibility criteria, program guidelines, and commence your application, visit the SAM website: https://sheppartonartmuseum.com.au/support-get-involved/the-urbach/
The Urbach 2026 Details:
- Open to artists working in the field of Australian landscape painting, which includes painting, drawing, and photography.
- Applicants must be living in Victoria.
- The Urbach First Prize
- $5,000 cash prize
- $5,000 scholarship stipend
- 3-month access to the SAM Artist Studio to undertake the scholarship
- Tailored professional development opportunities.
- The Urbach Second Prizes
- $2,500 cash prize for two runners up in recognition of their time and commitment in developing their applications and presenting to the panel.
- The Urbach First Prize
Applications close: 15 December 2025
Image: 2025 Urbach recipient Anthea Kemp in the SAM Artist Studio, 2025. Photo: Leon Schoots