Pattie Beerens
Location
Naarm/Melbourne, VIC
About
A member of the Clay Matters group of clay-workers, artist pattie
beerens explores notions of respectful relations with materials. Beerens creates collaborative weavings with clay that are ephemeral and return to the earth.
Australian-born, of migrant heritage, beerens works with scores, as in dance, and has an interest in the ethos emerging from her practice of ‘clay weaving’: caring for clay and earth as kin; crafting by ‘working with’ more than ‘doing to’ materials, and experiencing being part of, more than separate from, nature.
Beerens is a published writer and her works have been recognised:
Design Fringe – Best Experimental (2023); Northern Beaches
Environmental Art & Design Prize (2022); Association of Sculptors
Victoria Tina Wencher Sculpture Prize (2022); Toorak Sculpture
Exhibition prize (2021).
Artist Statement
In this session, Clay Matters will celebrate initiatives already underway in potters' studios across Australia and in unexpected places. The Potter’s Pledge can be brought to life by adapting, innovating, relating, and advocating for responsible and respectful new ways of working with the earth’s finite resources.
The aim of this session is to expand on The Potter’s Pledge and explore what is possible when clay is the medium.
In January 2025, Clay Matters will announce a call for artists to share how they creatively live The Potter’s Pledge and invite them to share their stories. A selection of these stories will be shared with Triennale delegates.
Pattie Beerens will lead this interactive presentation, describing how her intimate relationship with clay led her to pivot from object-making to a practice of weaving with clay, which she shares with passerby visitors. Beerens says: “When I fire the clay, it seems to lose the aliveness that I relate to as kin.”