LOREN BEVEN

ABOUT LOREN BEVEN

Exploring the relationship between culture and place, Loren’s work is a poem to place.

Loren grew up in South Africa. After studying painting at Stellenbosch University she headed to London and Wimbledon School of Art. After graduating, she travelled across Asia and settled for a while on Lamma Island, Hong Kong where she had a fine art and mural studio. She set up the first Lamma Arts Festival in the hamlet of Pak Kok, where she lived.

After returning to London, Loren joined artists’ collective Studio Voltaire in a disused tram shed on Voltaire Road in Clapham. In1999 she was integral in moving the organisation to its current premises and instigating the vision of Studio Voltaire as one of the UK’s leading independent arts organisations with a pioneering public programmes of exhibitions, participation projects, live events and offsite commissions.

Loren studied screen printing at London College of Printmaking. In 2004 she was awarded an Arts Council England (ACE) residency in the printmaking department at London Metropolitan University whilst also reading for an MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths.

Living between London and South East Asia, she spent a significant amount of time in Nepal where she was artist-in-residence and later print making tutor in the Fine Art department at Kathmandu University. She had a large solo exhibition at Kathmandu’s prestigious Siddhartha Gallery.

In 2012 she was awarded an ACE residency at University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury where she later completed an MA with distinction in Fine Art in 2014. The MA and Studio Voltaire’s participation programmes formed a foundation for Loren’s continuing interest in collaborative practice.

Exploring the role of culture in relation to place, her collaborative projects connect communities and artists, generating responses to social and cultural issues, developing a closer relationship between the artist, the production of work and an active and engaged audience.

Underground Pearl was a two year collaborative project (2013-15) with artist Katryn Saqui and fisherman Nigel Clements and was one of five funded ‘Prosper Adventures’, a Canterbury Festival initiative designed and produced by The Map Consortium and Workers of Art. The aim of the project was to collaborate with the local community to raise awareness of history in contemporary ways through forming unexpected relationships, engaging in debate, encouraging collaboration and connecting to the sea. The project worked with Dover Arts Development, LV21, Deal Festival, Canterbury Festival and Turner Contemporary’s outreach programme.

Loren’s current projects continue to be site responsive, engaging with relevant issues through the memory of the people and events of the past that haunt our lives and shape the space around us.