Frances Loriente was born in Williamstown, the picturesque seaside village overlooking Melbourne in Victoria Australia, to migrant European parents. From an early age, the dichotomy between these two cultures has been a constant source of exploration and inspiration in all her artwork leading her to pursue a career in fine art. In 1992 she graduated with Bachelor of Arts, Fine Arts, majoring in Printmaking, from Monash University.
Initially, printmaking was her primary creative focus, working mainly with black and white relief. However, after moving to colour, Frances began to sense limitations in printmaking as a medium. This, coupled with the inspiration of the works she had seen while travelling through Italy, Spain, Ireland, England and Scotland in the late nineties, became the main catalyst to move her all creative energy progressively toward painting.
Upon returning to Australia, Frances began to expand into painting, utilising both oils and acrylic, as well as creating sculptural assemblages.
Since graduating she has been exhibiting regularly around Australia in group shows and 6 major solo exhibitions. Her most recent solo exhibition, ‘Fragmented Soundscapes’, looking at the Melbourne Music Culture with some 200 pieces produced over 10 years. Frances has also been selected as finalist in several prize exhibitions including The ‘She’ Prize for Female Artists at The Walker Street Gallery Dandenong Victoria, The ‘Black Swan Portrait Prize’ in Perth Western Australia, and the Xstrata Percival Portrait Prize Townsville Queensland. She has collaborated with other artists and architects to create large-scale installations in public spaces such as The Footscray Library and Dimmeys Windows in Richmond.

More recently Frances, in her other role as a band manager, has been traveling throughout Australia visiting remote areas of this country, meeting Indigenous Australians, all of which she has depicted in her paintings. Touring has allowed Frances to see the width and breadth of this country which is Australia.

Photographs taken while touring saw her delving into the digital art as a new creative outlet. Still finding her feet with the technology, Frances has collaborated with musician Bart Willoughby to produce a photo montage video clip for the Australia Project website and touring exhibition. This soon developed into an interest in stop motion animation which, with a return to bronze castings, spurred an interest in further animating characters she had developed. Frances is currently working on both stop motion video clips and animated shorts for future exhibitions, whilst continuing to paint and sculpt.

Examples of Frances’s work can be seen as part of a projection accompanying Bart Willoughby’s “We Still Live On” performances (which will be touring the country over the next 2 years with the support of The Australia Council) with the first show of the tour at Djilpin Arts and the Australian Shakespeare Company’s Walking With The Spirits at Beswick Falls, July 2014.