Human sculpture hits the beach

The 'human sculpture' takes shape at dawn on Manly Beach. Ian Waldie / Getty Images

SYDNEY - Volunteers stood at the water's edge in business suits and read newspapers to form a "human sculpture" on Sydney's Manly Beach this weekend.

Existential artist Andrew Baines had called for men, women and children to meet him at the beach at daybreak to form the piece sculpture.

Baines said his live work has been inspired by a revelation as a child on the London Underground at peak hour, where he faced a sea of "corporate battery hens".

Baines saw value in showing those corporate types in more surreal surroundings -such as a beach.

Earlier this year the beach at Melbourne's St Kilda was the setting for hundreds of willing strangers to wade fully clothed at dawn into the sea bearing brollies, briefcases and bowler hats. Now it's Sydney's turn.

"I love the beach", he affirmed on an Adelaide art gallery's website.

"The people who wander it all have hidden stories. I'm fascinated by what imagination conjures up about them and then pours onto my canvas."