Biennale Plus

In addition to the sculpture trail, Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2022 is pleased to present Biennale Plus.

Biennale Plus is a program of events that includes artistic performances by some of our 16 precinct artists, as well as several invited sculpture and performance artists.

The sculptural works of several of our 16 precinct artists include performance and other events that form an intrinsic part of their broader work. Some evolve for the duration of our three-week event, while others are scheduled at specific times.

Three additional artists Domenico De Clario, Darren McGinn and Pattie Beerens will also produce work featuring performance, participation and unique experiences for visitors to the Biennale.

Dates and times for performances under the Biennale Plus banner can be found on the calendar.

Ryan F. Kennedy – Ocean Road Precinct

Acclaimed performance, sound and media artist Ryan F Kennedy emerged on the scene in 2014 with his immigration to Australia from New York. RFK’s first work, the woven / mediative installation ‘Paper or Plastic’ premiered at Fehily Contemporary and was the catalyst for future commissions, exhibitions and awards.

Connecting RFK’s transdisciplinary practice outside the studio RFK works with public / private institutions through residences, exhibitions, and lectures, Melbourne City Library, Melbourne Girls Grammar and Australian Catholic University. Selected exhibitions with Black Cat Gallery, & Gallery, Stockroom Gallery and past commissions include White Night Melbourne, Biennale of Australian Art, City of Ballarat.

RFK utilises performance, sculptural form and sound to create his immersive art form of experiential landscapes or ‘ex-scapes’. Sentient in nature each work evolves during and beyond its exhibition accessing audiences through direct / indirect participation. These award winning works incorporate the arts, humanities and sciences of histories past present and future.

Stevens Vaughn - The Pier precinct

Stevens Vaughn is a conceptual ritualistic artist, who has spent much of his life in Asia. In 1978 he was sent by the Peace Corps, from a farm in the US to the Philippines, to work with tropical agriculture. This step led him into a lifelong relationship with Asian Art, history and mythology. Vaughn established a career as a designer and sculptor in Asia and other parts of the world, opening studios in Japan, China, Taiwan, Sri-Lanka and Mexico. During his nine years based in Japan he was influenced by “MA- Space” and Shibui aesthetics, the philosophy of simple, rough effortless imperfection as it relates to perfection, in a non-dualist construct of the world.

Stevens’ work for LSB2022, The Throne of Potentiality will form the centre of a spoken word performance by Stevens on the opening day of the Biennale.

Deborah Halpern - The Wild Colonial Club precinct

Deborah Halpern is a multi-disciplinary artist who explores the mediums of sculpture, painting, pottery, glass blowing and printmaking. Her work can be exuberant and whimsical but is also imbued with a deep artistry. Spontaneous in form, her creatures are created in a style that recalls visions of Gaudi, Picasso and the playful surrealism of French sculptor Niki De Saint Phalle, yet all have become distinctly Halpernesque in their ability to delight and surprise.

Deborah’s work – Ghost – will recall Lorne’s iconic Wild Colonial Club from the mid 20^th century. Utilising a timber construction, the sculpture will be enhanced by performance and projections each weekend.

Deborah Halpern - The Wild Colonial Club precinct

Domenico de Clario

Domenico de Clario (MA, PhD) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, academic and musician. He was born in Trieste, Italy, in 1947 and migrated to Australia in 1956. Since 1966 de Clario has presented more than 350 exhibitions, installations and performances. He has received numerous grants and residencies, including the Australia Council Fellowship, and has published three books and several CD’s of his performances. His work is represented in all Australian public galleries and in major private collections.

Flowers for Lorne will re-imagine the relationship between Lorne and three specific creative individuals of the late 19^th and early 20^th century: Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and D.H. Lawrence.

Over three performances using light and the spoken word de Clario will take his audience on a journey that will celebrate Lorne as a site of artistic pilgrimage.

Darren McGinn

Dr Darren McGinn has worked as a lecturer of Visual Arts and Technology at various academic institutions including the University of Melbourne and the Victorian College of the Arts. He has received numerous awards in national and international exhibitions for contemporary ceramics and sculpture. He is a practicing potter and sculptor.

'Talisman’ is a tribute to the Shipwreck coast, the perilous and often fatal journeys that our forebears undertook. A reference to shipwrecked castaways’ use of SOS (Save Our Souls), the work is also imbued with the symbolism of journey, navigation, mythology and folklore.

The firing of ‘Talisman’ is an all-day performance event culminating in the unveiling of the work – red hot and glowing at night.

pattie beerens

Pattie Beerens (pattie beerens) is a relational and participatory artist who creates living, ongoing collaborative engagements with the world as art. Hers is an experimental art practice that began a few years ago and is based on the notion that humans, as part of nature, are kin with the world around them.

By sharing her love of clay – earth - in collaborative performances of weaving, Pattie creates conversations about relations – respect - and collaborative survival.

Durational and adaptive, viewers are invited to interact with Pattie’s works as they form into curious, whimsical, mattering, entanglements and become ephemeral traces of human and non-human relations.

‘dwell’ will be a shared and collaborative experience of rewilding sculpture – as performance and trace. Multi-dimensional and collaborative, the work will be performed by different artists and performers. It follows on from recent Surf Coast art collaborations nurtured digitally by Tom Radtke – mattering moonahs (2020), two gather (2021), moonah gathering (2021) and anglesea phantoms (2021)

Join Pattie as she creates an evolving, ephemeral work from found materials sourced locally and respectfully in Lorne and surrounds. The space will be converted into one in which the audience will want to dwell – look out to the horizon, close eyes, touch, feel and smell the rawness of the seaside.

Pattie is a published writer, has won various awards including the recent 2021 Toorak Village Sculpture Award, has works in a number of prestigious art collections and recently completed a Master of Fine Arts (RMIT).

Domenico de Clario - Flowers for Lorne 1

Saturday, 12 March 2022 - 7-8pm

Domenico de Clario's contribution to the Lorne Sculpture Biennale (Spirit of Place) consists of four performances. Three of the performances focus on the enigmatic presence of D. H Lawrence, Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling in Lorne, during a period spanning the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th.

The fourth performance homages the life and work of Albert Namatjira, and begins at sunset on the full moon evening of March 18.

Performance One takes place on the remains of the old Lorne Pier and consists of a translation into keyboard sounds of D. H. Lawrence’s description of his first encounter with the Australian bush (Kangaroo, page 11).

Performer: domenico de clario (translator / keyboard).

Domenico de Clario - Flowers for Lorne 1

Sunday, 13 March 2022 - 7-8pm

The fourth performance homages the life and work of Albert Namatjira, and begins at sunset on the full moon evening of March 18.

The second performance begins at 7 pm (sunset) on Sunday March 13 in the Ballroom of the Mantra Hotel, on the Hotel’s grounds between Mountjoy Parade and the Lorne seafront.

Domenico de Clario - Flowers for Lorne 2

Friday, 18 March 2022 - 7-8pm

Flowers for Lorne will re-imagine the relationship between Lorne and three specific creative individuals of the late 19^th and early 20^th century: Rudyard Kipling, Mark Twain and D.H. Lawrence.

Over three performances using light and the spoken word de Clario will take his audience on a journey that will celebrate Lorne as a site of artistic pilgrimage.

Performance Three: A translation into keyboard sound of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Flowers for Lorne’, written following his visit to Lorne and the Erskine River Falls.

Friday, 18 March 2022 - 8pm

The fourth performance is titled ‘Songs for Albert’ and homages the life and work of Albert Namatjira through a sound / dance presentation (keyboard, voice, body and alto saxophone) of the songs he loved. It takes place at 8 pm on Friday March 18 (full moon) at St Cuthbert’s Uniting Church in Mountjoy Parade.

Domenico de Clario - Flowers for Lorne 4 'Songs for Albert'

Saturday, 19 March 2022 - Saturday afternoon starting at 1pm

A living memorial, Monument will be an experiential work featuring an orchestration of performance, sculpture, land art, light and sound.

The second of MONUMENT’s three stages, this special performance explores the past to present uses / views about the Great Ocean Road. Ryan F Kennedy and Ben Michael are joined by performance artist Lynden Nicholls.

Ryan F. Kennedy – Ocean Road Precinct - 'What it is'

Saturday, 19 March 2022 - Sunday morning

A living memorial, Monument will be an experiential work featuring an orchestration of performance, sculpture, land art, light and sound.

Ryan F. Kennedy – Ocean Road Precinct - 'What it is' part 2

Saturday, 26 March 2022 - 7-8pm

The fourth performance homages the life and work of Albert Namatjira, and begins at sunset on the full moon evening of March 18.

Performance Three begins at sunset (7pm) at the Erskine rivermouth: A translation into keyboard sound of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Flowers for Lorne’, written following his visit to Lorne and the Erskine River Falls.

Domenico de Clario - Flowers for Lorne 3

Saturday, 02 April 2022 - 7pm

A living memorial, Monument will be an experiential work featuring an orchestration of performance, sculpture, land art, light and sound.

The finale to MONUMENT, this sunset event culminates and concludes the three-week-long durational performance work. Artists Ryan F Kennedy and Ben Michael are accompanied by performance artist Lynden Nicholls and musician Gareth Skinner.