Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) alumni Helga Groves and Jack Wotton have been awarded a combined $45,000 as recipients of the 2026 Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship. The scholarship supports artists to expand their practice through self-directed travel and research.
Established in 1997, the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship empowers SCA graduates by funding travel-based professional development, enabling artists to deepen their practice and broaden their perspectives.
"We were delighted by the exceptionally strong field of applications received this year," said Director of SCA, Professor Julie Rrap.
“The calibre, clarity and ambition demonstrated across both categories made the judging process particularly challenging. Every artist brought a distinctive perspective and compelling presentation to the selection, and we congratulate all finalists on the strength and originality of their work."
This year's esteemed judging panel included Professor Rrap, Director of SCA, Rachel Kent, CEO of Bundanon, and artist Judy Watson.
Mid-career/established category recipient: Helga Groves
"Helga’s work is quiet, contemplative and highly focused, grounded in forensic attention to detail and a deeply sustained inquiry. Moving between the extremes of the northern and southern hemispheres, her practice plays beautifully between the micro and macro: from the enormity of glaciers and ice flows to the extraordinary structure of a single ice crystal," said the judging panel.
"There is a shimmer and a sense of life force within the work. In a noisy world, hers is a practice of deep attention." An Australian artist of Finnish heritage, Helga lives and works in Naarm/Melbourne. Her multidisciplinary practice encompasses painting, weaving, sculptural forms, collage and drawing. For more than thirty-five years, she has exhibited across Australia and internationally. With field research constituting an integral aspect of Groves’s practice, she has completed residencies in Hanoi, Vietnam; Paris, France; Helsinki, Finland; New York, USA; Bundanon, NSW and the Pilbara, WA.
The scholarship will support Helga to undertake research in Finland across Lake Kilpisjärvi and Koli National Park, engaging with Arctic ecosystems, glacial geology, seasonal ice melt and Finnish heritage to inform new experimental artworks.
Emerging category recipient: Jack Wotton
Practice-led Doctor of Philosophy, 2024 graduate Jack Wotton received the emerging artist scholarship for his work Disasters 0-9. Prompted by firsthand experience of the 2019 bushfires, the work combines photographic etchings, records, painting and sound to explore environmental and psychological destruction, memory and the aftermath of disaster.
"Jack’s work is deeply experimental, bringing object and sound together to evoke catastrophe in a way that is both haunting and subtle. The echo of that catastrophe moves through the work, through the body, and reaches somewhere beyond words," commented the judges.
"His presentation confronts the difficulty of giving form to the experience of disaster. There is a deep, personal resonance here: a sense of this experience being cut into the psyche, then carried outward into material and sound. It is the work's sophisticated restraint that intensifies its emotional force."
Jack Wotton is a Sydney-based artist whose interdisciplinary practice explores fragmented psychology through photography, drawing, sound, video, sculpture, and performance.
With the scholarship, Jack will undertake a residency in Leipzig, Germany, developing his practice through specialist training in record lathe engraving and advanced printmaking. The residency will support Jack to produce a series of recordings and sound objects based on this research which will form a part of a wider body of work.
The generous bequest of the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship continues to be the gift that keeps on giving. Alongside this award, the fund also supports several student scholarships each year.
Professor Julie Rrap
Director, Sydney College of the Arts
The prize-winning works of Helga Groves and Jack Wotton, along with those of seven outstanding finalists, are currently on display at the Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship Exhibition until 7 November 2026 at the SCA Gallery at the University of Sydney, Camperdown.
The exhibition features artworks of Helga Groves, Locust Jones, Sara Morawetz, Tina Stefanou, and Kai Wasikowski (all finalists in the mid-career/established artists category), as well as Melanie Booth, Jack Harman, Benita Laylim, and Jack Wotton (emerging artists category).
About the SCA Alumni Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship
The Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship was established in 1997 through a gift from the estate of Renee Fauvette Erdos, an educator and founder of the History Teachers' Association of NSW, celebrating the memory of her mother Fauvette Loureiro. There are two categories of the award – an emerging artist receives a prize of $15,000, and a mid-career/established artist receives $30,000. The purpose of the scholarship is to support graduates of the Sydney College of the Arts to pursue a program of professional development through travel.
Banner image: Installation view SCA Alumni Fauvette Loureiro Memorial Scholarship exhibition, recipient Jack Wotton, Disasters 0-9 (Emerging), SCA Gallery, Sydney College of the Arts, The University of Sydney. 2026. Photo: Document Photography.