About The Artist

Clare Thackway paints people and the structures of meaning we build in our lives. Best known for her forthright portraits, Thackway understands the figure as a form of communication, embodying and interpreting our ideas about the self and representation. She frequently depicts people she knows well, with a particular focus on the bonds in intergenerational relationships.

Motifs of drapery, grids, and stripes recur in Thackway’s paintings. She draws on religious iconography as a system of association and codification. Together, these elements present a complex enquiry into bodily agency, sexuality, and networks of meaning. Informed by psychoanalytic and feminist theory, she explores the tensions we feel as we navigate desires for connection, interdependence and autonomy.

Thackway studied visual art at the Australian National University, the Glasgow School of Art, and the National Art School, Sydney. She has held solo exhibitions across Australia and in London, Paris, and Shanghai, and has been a finalist in several of Australia’s most prestigious prizes, including the Archibald Prize, the Sir John Sulman Prize, the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the Helen Lempriere Travelling Scholarship, and the Blake Art Prize.

She currently lives and works in Paris, France.