Lorenna Grant
Early Life & Finding Art
Lorenna Grant discovered art at a very young age while constantly moving around and alone, giving her the opportunity to express herself and be heard.
She found an aptitude in 3D modelling and drawing, which manifested as she got older and she started weaving as well as working with leather, clay as well as writing poetry.
“I would take myself to night classes… back then they would only have a ceramic bowl class but I would make little sculptures out of the clay, always going off in my own direction” she says.
While in school, Lorenna was barraged with the images and stories of artists and their tragic lives and there was no indication that anyone could “do art” full time. While she was selected for exhibitions at the end of high school, she wasn’t bolstered by that kind of achievement and left high school to spend the next 12 years travelling and living a self-proclaimed “wild” life.
Lorenna describes art as “choosing” her, and it was something she didn’t properly start studying until 30 years old.
“It was nice because I lived a subculture in my 20’s and found that art had a kind of expressive subculture that I was very fortunate to get into. I think it was always there waiting for me.”
After 3 years of art school, Lorenna knew it was her life and settled into a community of artists living in the Perth hills, showcasing her work in group and solo exhibitions.
Lorenna describes her time exhibiting in a gallery as an amazing sort of “apprenticeship” as it taught her about scale and proportion, and the way art can affect the viewer and inform us about ourselves.
After several years, Lorenna was invited to teach art, design, visual literacy, sculpture and drawing at the local TAFE, and she also lectured at Edith Cowan University and tutored landscape architecture at the University of Western Australia.
Lorenna enjoyed watching the students and describes their transition from self-conscious, unsure and doubtful students into confident adults as an exciting thing to watch, and she loved seeing them contribute to the collective artist community.
However, weighed down from the bureaucracy and structure of teaching, it was one night in 1998 that Lorenna had an awakening moment, which she describes as a “compass” directing her onto another path.
“I can remember several moments in my life like this, where I knew I wasn’t going to be doing that thing, whatever that thing was.”
This moment pushed her to leave her teaching job, and within 6 weeks she was awarded two artist residencies, one for the National Australia Council in Milan and another 6-month residency in Barcelona and Switzerland. Within 6 months she had won her first public art commission from the Department of Education – which was also her first project with DENMAC, for Halls Head Middle School, called ‘Flying South’.
Creating Inspiring Public Art in Western Australia
While public art wasn’t the direction Lorenna was planning to go down, she was fascinated with figurative, classical sculptures and this morphed into ephemeral and landscape work.
Lorenna found it a natural progression to move into public works and integration with buildings, and she uses the space around the proposed art location to inspire her.
“Because I spent so much time driving around Perth and looking at these bleached landscapes, I always felt like there was such a canvas to be able to create. It’s really exciting to be able to carry several ideas through and be able to make them fruit, thereby helping to create environments that are individual and pertaining to the specific place.”
She describes how lucky Perth artists are to have the opportunity to create “layers of wonder and pondering for people that are engaging with our local landscapes and built environments and natural surrounds.”
Some examples of Lorenna’s projects with DENMAC that showcase this inspiration by the surroundings include:
Mulla Mulla in Karratha (2012) – Made of steel, steel mesh, airbrushed enamels and light, this piece is a feminine show in a predominantly masculine townscape inspired by the floral ephemera found resilient amongst the iron hills of Karratha.
Beatty Park Aquatic Centre (2015) – Steel, paint, mirror stainless steel and light, this is inspired by the ‘rivulets’ found throughout the Beatty Park complex.
Artwork in Angove Street (2016) – Made from steel and composite panels, the inspiration was to show abstractly the presence of the ancestral community of North Perth, blending with references to the old movie theatre adjacent, echoes of the movie viewers and the classic red velvet curtains. Tales of a watchful older generation mixed in the present.
Project Design Inspiration
“When I’m starting to think of a project, it’s hard to explain, there seems to be this operation of all these layers, and each feed into that and starts to form into ideas. It’s like a whole layered field of connecters and then you pull that together at an early stage so that it makes sense to the people you are presenting to.”
Lorenna gives absolute dedication to each project, and unless she feels a “rising” and “connection” with a project, she will not agree to go ahead. She is also passionate towards the ecological and environmental impact that projects have on the surrounding location.
“We don’t have to damage nature, we can design in intelligent ways to avoid that now. Let’s start getting fun and creative with what we do.”
Lorenna describes her influences as movement, energy, the unseen forces, watching things come and go and how they linger around us, the planets, stars and the earth.
“Words are also a lot of my inspiration, words create beautiful movies in your head. Listening to someone invoke through words is a really powerful thing, because I have that tendency to visualise. So, words tend to be more inspiring to me than a resolved visual thing.”
Lorenna defines a fatal flaw in projects is when the artist is being constantly directed, squeezing the magic out of the artwork.
Biography courtesy of Denmac
Visit: www.lorennagrant.com
