Sculptor Sam Anderson captivates audiences at Sculpture Bermagui on the Far South Coast with his steel gorilla

Mr Anderson, who hails from El Dorado near Beechworth in Victoria, said he started with a steel frame that he made, his reference a picture of a gorilla stuck up on the wall.

The gorilla is made from 530 metres of malleable steel strapping in 4 metre lengths.

"I've got to hammer it over the anvil and put a bit of pressure on it, so I fold it onto the frame work and it doesn't kink and go in all the wrong places, it's quite a lengthy process," he said.

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"It was the first sculpture I made using that process and when I started I had no idea how long that process was going to take, I just woke up one morning and thought, I'm going to make a gorilla.

"The gorilla has probably got between four and five layers of strapping on it, so he ended up being a little bit more muscly than I planned, but he was probably a good sculpture to trial that method of construction, because I could get away with making him a little bit bigger," he said.

Mr Anderson named him Bwindi which means impenetrable forest, and is also a place where gorillas live in Uganda, southeast Africa.

Mr Anderson said Bwindi was loved by all and had attended lots of events such as folk and music festivals across Victoria. He has found that sculptures of animals were always really loved by people and especially by children.

He lives on a five acre block and stores all of his sculptures on his property, he said people often drive out to stop and look at the sculptures closest to the road and take pictures.

"I've got them all dotted around the paddock and I get a lot of people driving out and having a look at the sculptures near the side of the road."

He said in the future he was planning to create a sculpture park on his property.

He has since started a rhino sculpture using the same process as the gorilla and many of his sculptures feature animals of all kinds. He likes to make people stop and think about animals and to raise awareness about habitat destruction and conservation.

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"It's about just making people think a bit more about wildlife. We get so busy in our Twenty-First Century lifestyle that we don't really get time to think about it that much or donate," he said.

He often thinks about the impact of humans on wildlife and has made other pieces, such as his yellow fin tuna sculptures, which he created to draw attention to the over harvesting of fish before they reached maturity.

"People don't really see the impact they have on a species as they just appear on supermarket shelves. Even our cereals and our grains are impacting the environment negatively," he said.

He also mentioned the possibility of one day driving around Australia with Bwindi for a raffle to raise awareness and generate donations to give to the rangers who risk their lives to protect declining gorilla populations.

Bwindi made the trip from North Eastern Victoria to Bermagui on the back of a trailer, and Mr Anderson said he would often see people entertained by the gorilla on the back of the vehicle.

"It's always interesting driving down the highway because you get these people that love it.

"Often they're the only people in the car and they've got the mobile phone out and I realise that suddenly I've got to put the foot down because they're getting closer and closer to me and almost going over the rumble strip while they're trying to take a photo of the gorilla," he said.

"It's a big trip over to Bermagui but it's such a great community over there, they're so inviting and it's such a good vibe there at the Bermagui exhibition, I love going there every year."

Mr Anderson made the trip back to Bermagui on Friday, March 11 and said he would be back around 2pm or 3pm on Sunday, March 13.

"A big shout out and thanks to all the volunteers, it's a long period of time to have a show on and there has been some pretty unfortunate weather, so they really make it all happen," he said.