Clare Thackway Lottie

Clare Thackway’s subject is Lottie Consalvo, a multidisciplinary artist based in Newcastle, NSW, whose work explores the psyche and imagination, dreams and memory.

‘Lottie inspires me to be brighter and braver. I have known her for many years, and although we haven’t spent much time together, we respect each other as artists,’ says two-time Archibald finalist Thackway.

‘I often look to Lottie. We are both female artists of the same generation, married to painters and mothering children of similar ages. But we share a greater connection. Through different forms, we strive to make work that reaches the essence of the inner human experience.

‘Across her practice, Lottie works with a highly contrasted yet restricted palette, using creamy whites and yellow ochre against browns, greys and blacks. I have echoed that palette in the cloth backdrop. I often use patterned cloth as a symbol of the unconscious, interconnectedness and patterns of behaviour.

‘Lottie activates the surface of her paintings with energetic, gestural marks that describe reduced geometric forms. Although rendered differently, the rhythmic patterning of the gingham in this portrait aims to emulate the pulsating quality of her brushwork.’