Sculpture by the Sea is billed as the world’s largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition. This year it will its celebrate its 22nd anniversary when it returns to Sydney’s Bondi to Tamarama coastal walk on October 18.

The coastline will become a two-kilometre long sculpture park with more than 100 works by Australian and international artists.

And three of them are from Canberra.

Michael Le Grand, of Hall, says, "I'm part of the Decade Club."

That means he's one of the artists who's been exhibiting for 10 or more years. In his case, he's exhibited both in Bondi and in the companion event at Cotteslowe Beach in Western Australia (established in 2005).

"I must be coming up to 20 years' participation," he says.

Sculpture by the Sea is one of the few events of its kind, he says. He was overseas one year and a judge in 2003 but otherwise has exhibited consistently in Bondi.

He also exhibited twice in the first international Sculpture by the Sea, established in Aarhus, Denmark in 2009 with the support of Crown Princess Mary and Crown Prince Frederik (this event ended in 2015).

Le Grand says about half a million people visit Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi each year. The event has some government funding - the NSW government has given grants of $100,000 a year for three years - but relies largely on private sponsorship.

He says the event is "high calibre ... and highly competitive" and on a large scale: "Your work needs some presence."

Le Grand retired as head of sculpture at the Australian National University School of Art in 2007 but has continued his interest in steel sculpture. He has also been involved in the development of the early Floriade Sculpture events, ANU/CSA Sculpture Walk and the Canberra National Sculpture Forum.

For this year's Sculpture by the Sea he has created Guardian, which he describes as a totem.

"To me, it looks like a guard."

It's a 2.5 metre high abstract work with pre-ageing on the surface of the steel. While he created most of the work, he says the "squashed" section on top came from Sell & Parker Scrap Metal.

Le Grand studied at Saint Martin's School of Art in London and says he's been working in steel since the 1970s.

"You can span distances with it. If you make a mistake with steel or you don't like the original concept you can change it."

He says while he does his own welding, he uses the services of a local spray painter to paint the highly finished work, as he believes this results in a more professional jobv than he himself could achieve.

Leo Loomans, of O’Connor, ACT, was previously in Sculpture by the Sea in 2005. He says his welded steel work for 2018, Icarus Rising, took him a couple of years to make.

"Every sculpture is a problem," he says.

"You start with an urge, you start with a question mark," he says ...You search it out and find the question."

Icarus Rising references the Greek myth of Icarus, a young man wearing wings who, despite his father's warning, flew too close to the sun. The wax on his wings melted from the heat and he fell to his death.

"It's a moral tale about a young fella who thinks he knows better than his dad."

Loomans studied sculpture under Ian McKay at the National Art School in the 1980s. He has exhibited in solo and group shows in Canberra since 1996.

Also exhibiting from Canberra is Senden Blackwood, of Bruce, whose stone sculptures are inspired by the pure underlying forms of nature. Blackwood has carved and exhibited in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States.

His sculpture is titled Portmanteau and in his artist statement he writes, "Portmanteau is the blending of two ideas, two textures, to create something new. The smooth reflective lens contrasts a complex rhythm, communicating memories, experiences of nature and the balance between seeking perfection and engaging with chaos."