Perpetual and Sculpture by the Sea today announced the three recipients of the prestigious Helen Lempriere Scholarships, awarding a total of $90,000 to support Australian artists as part of Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2025.
$35,000 Senior Artist Angela Valamanesh (SA)
$30,000 Mid-Career Artist Ayako Saito (NSW)
$25,000 Emerging Artist Nicholas Burridge (VIC)
The Helen Lempriere Scholarships are designed to enable artists to further their artistic development through travel, study and the purchase of important new equipment while supporting their inclusion in the upcoming Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi.
The scholarships are gifted as part of the Helen Lempriere Bequest, a charitable trust managed by Perpetual, providing scholarships with the aim to foster and promote contemporary Australian sculpture. Over the last 15 years the Helen Lempriere Scholarships have provided 45 artists from every State and Territory in Australia with $1.26M of financial support that has not only materially advanced each recipient’s knowledge and skill as artists but has materially advanced sculpture as an art form and the visual arts in Australia.
Angela Valamanesh, Ayako Saito and Nicholas Burridge will each exhibit a work as part of Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2025, one of Sydney’s largest and best attended annual events which returns to the stunning 2km Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk from October 17.
Founding CEO & Artistic Director of Sculpture by the Sea David Handley says, “Congratulations to Angela Valamanesh, Ayako Saito and Nicholas Burridge on receiving this year’s Helen Lempriere Scholarships for a combined value of $90,000. The Lempriere Scholarships are transformative for each artist giving them the financial means to take the next step in their careers by funding new tools for their studio, travel and to assist with costs of exhibiting in Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi. Thank you to Perpetual for managing the Helen Lempriere Bequest and entrusting our organisation to administer the scholarships. It is a highlight of each year to inform the three Australian artists to receive a Lempriere Scholarship and to hear their surprise and delight when they are told the news.”
Perpetual National Manager of Philanthropy & Non Profit Services, Jane Magor said: “The Helen Lempriere Bequest is now one of the most prestigious annual prizes for contemporary sculpture in Australia, providing more than $2 million in funding for Australian artists since its establishment nearly 30 years ago.
“The scholarships not only foster and promote the work of Australian artists, but ultimately reflect the significance of the philanthropy sector where trusts and endowments continue to recognise, support and grow the cultural life of Australia.”
Angela Valamanesh, based in South Australia, has been an independent visual artist based in Adelaide for over 40 years. She works across different mediums with a focus on the connection between art and science and our connections to all life forms.
Valamanesh will exhibit ‘The Last Eggs’ at Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi this year. The artwork is an oversized necklace composed of different sized glazed ceramic eggs strung together and made into a pile. Both the eggs and necklace are well-known for carrying rich symbolism, representing themes of rebirth, life and the end of species and personal identity across various cultures, but Angela hopes the work offers a degree of ambiguity
With the Helen Lempriere Scholarship, Valamanesh will travel overseas to explore museums and galleries for research and development of new work. She will include travelling to Seoul in Korea as she has long admired Korean ceramics but also the contemporary minimalist art movement Dansaekhwa which is primarily painting but also three-dimensional texture. A component of the scholarship funds will be put towards the purchase of studio equipment to enhance and sustain an ongoing visual art practice.
Valamanesh says, “As an established visual artist I know the difficulties of maintaining a studio practice over many years. I also know the pleasures that come from being in a position to continue building a practice, making new work in my studio and sharing it with an audience. The Helen Lempriere Scholarship is a most welcome acknowledgement of my practice and more importantly an impetus to take on new challenges.”
Ayako Saito is originally from Tokyo, moving to Australia in her early twenties to study sculpture at the Australian National University where she completed a Master in Visual Arts. Since then, she has been a practicing sculptor in Sydney.
For Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2025, Saito will be exhibiting a welded abstract steel sculpture. It does not have a practical function nor a specific message. It is only made to be experienced with imagination, which is a privilege of humans, and she hopes it gives the viewers a sense of pleasure.
Saito intends to use the scholarship to visit sculpture parks, museums and architectural masterpieces in countries around the world to explore how forms create space and how that interaction is created. She says, “It is a privilege to be awarded a Lempriere Scholarship and satisfying that there is recognition of my works so far.”
Based in Victoria, Nicholas Burridge’s practice examines the relationship between industrialisation and nature, with a focus on how manufacturing processes often mimic geological systems. His research engages with the concept of ‘terraforming’ to explore how human activity is reshaping the planet in the context of the Anthropocene, period of human life on earth. Working through material experimentation, he develops processes such as casting synthetic lava, forming metals with explosives, and building machines to create or erode sedimentary rock, with each project grounded in the specific histories and geologies of site.
For Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi 2025, Burridge will exhibit ‘Fluid Rocks’. Continuing his material investigation into the melting of volcanic rock basalt. This work speaks to deep time, geological forces and the culpability of the human hand in the seismic transformations underway. The work consists of three large basalt boulders which have been cut and modified to each take a section of artificially made volcanic glass. The boulders will be displayed on individual plinths in a composition that is sensitive to the site.
Burridge will use the scholarship to return to Europe, where he will participate in an artist residency in Portugal and continue his fieldwork at the extreme post-industrial site of the Rio Tinto river in southern Spain. He will also invest part of the funding into expanding his studio practice, with a focus on integrating digital fabrication methods to support his ongoing material and ecological research.
Burridge says, “I think it’s fantastic that scholarships like the Helen Lempriere Scholarship exist for sculptors. Sculpture is an incredibly demanding practice physically, materially, and financially so this kind of support plays a vital role in sustaining the field. I’m deeply humbled to have been selected for this scholarship. It’s an invaluable opportunity that allows me to return to Europe and further develop my sculptural practice in an international context.”
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi has been the world’s largest free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition for over two and a half decades. Staged in spring each year since 1997, the exhibition transforms the Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk into an outdoor gallery with 100 sculptures by artists from around the world for an estimated 450,000 visitors across 18 days. The exhibition generates national and international media opportunities and reputation benefits for the exhibiting artists.
The majority of Australia’s leading sculptors of the last 50 years have exhibited, most numerous times, including May Barrie, Anne Ferguson, Geoffrey Bartlett, Bert Flugelman AM, Richard Goodwin, Fiona Hall, Inge King AM, Stephen King, Michael Le Grand, Louise Paramor, James Rogers, Ron Robertson-Swann OAM, Michaelie Crawford, Jennifer Turpin, Ken Unsworth AM and Hossein Valamanesh. The exhibition’s international profile has seen some of the biggest names in international sculpture exhibit, such as Sir Anthony Caro, Phillip King CBE, Zadok Ben – David (England), Sui Jian Guo, Chen Wen Ling (China), Kozo Nishino, Keizo Ushio, Haruyuki Uchida (Japan), Fletcher Benton, Peter Lundeberg (USA) and David Černý (Czech Republic).
Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi opens 17 October 2025.
For further information on Sculpture by the Sea, please contact:
NIXCO – [email protected] | 02 8399 0626
For further information on the Helen Lempriere Bequest, please contact:
Daniel Wright, Corporate Communications, Perpetual | M: 0478 405 701 | E: [email protected]
Background to the Helen Lempriere Bequest
As one of Australia’s most prestigious annual awards for sculpture in Australia, the Helen Lempriere Scholarships foster and promote contemporary Australian sculpture.
The Scholarships are a realisation of a bequest made by the late Keith Wood to honour his wife, Helen Lempriere. Helen was one of Australia’s leading female artists in the mid-20th century, attracting national and international acclaim for her painting, printmaking and sculpture.
Serving as a fitting legacy for Helen Lempriere and her belief in supporting the arts, the Scholarships fulfil Keith Woods aims of making a significant philanthropic contribution to the arts while commemorating Helen, a leading figure in the development of a unique Australian aesthetic.
The Scholarships advance artists’ careers through study or research and since 2010 have been held in partnership with Sculpture by the Sea (SXSINC) who have been honoured to administer the annual Helen Lempriere Scholarships as one of the most high-profile art awards in Australia.
Managed by Perpetual as a charitable trust operating in perpetuity, the Helen Lempriere Bequest has provided over $2.4 million in funding support for Australian artists since the trust was established in 1996.
