Clare Thackway is an Australian painter based in Paris, France. She paints people and the structures of meaning we build in our lives. In her paintings, the body becomes a semaphore through which she examines psychological states and social dynamics, from the emotional to the societal. Informed by psychoanalytic and feminist theory, she explores the tensions between connection, interdependence and autonomy, considering how internal and collective experiences shape the ways in which we hold ourselves.

Motifs of drapery, and religious iconography recur in Thackway’s paintings, functioning as both compositional devices and systems of association and codification.

Her decisive and scratched back painted marks drag light off the surface of the body, exposing luminous translucent skin. This prudent use of paint gives pulsing life to flesh, revealing the layers that exist subtly underneath.

Thackway studied visual art at the Australian National University, including an exchange at the Glasgow School of Art, and graduated with Honours in Fine Art from the National Art School, Sydney. Since 2007, she has exhibited in Australia and internationally, with recent solo exhibitions in London, Paris, Melbourne and Beijing. Her work has been presented at Art Basel Hong Kong with Tabula Rasa Gallery and is held in private collections in Australia, the UK, Germany and France. She was awarded the Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship in 2009 and has been a finalist in the Archibald, Sir John Sulman, Doug Moran National Portrait, Blake and Portia Geach prizes.