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.

ENDS

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