Lottie Consalvo’s practice traverses painting, performance, video, photography and sculpture. Her work explores psychological shifts and how time, places and imagery alter our consciousness.
‘Lottie Consalvo contemplates time. Years, nano-seconds, moments of eternity, transition, points of no return – these moments of between and becoming are explored in abstract paintings and across mediums. Consalvo’s interdisciplinary practice includes performative and often quite specific autobiographical references.’ – Jo Higgins
The artist’s paintings often make reference to spiritual places such as stone arrangements, religious alters, public and private shrines and natural phenomenas such as waterfalls, great heights and the blurring shift in the act of falling. Whilst Consalvo’s performances are observations of quietly transformative experiences – from her 12- month long durational performance, Compartmentalise in 2012 where the artist lived with minimal possessions in an attempt to find a place of clarity, to her performance Near your sorrow where the artist sang along with a recording of a loved one who has passed away, singing together in harmony but very much apart. This performance is about the incomprehensibility of the loss of something so great. A longing that can never be cured, a love and loss that can never be fully grasped; the attempt to find a place where the present and past can exist together, an inevitable impossibility.
Through her performances her audience witness the transformative affect of memory in real-time as Consalvo moves through deeply personal places as part of long duration performances and immersive engagements with the fractured, uncanny spaces of the present. Like her performances, her paintings further this conversation whereby the artist creates a physical presence for imagination, memory and psychological transitions.
Working with a restricted palette across mediums, she often paints monumental forms referencing memory, landscape, altars, shrines and sacred places. The simple forms, the vastly empty spaces, the high contrast of opposing dark and light and the outcome of an almost impoverished surface sees Consalvo’s manifestation of the unknown, the invisible and the intangible.
Born 1985.
EDUCATION
2009
Engineering – Fabrication and Welding, Victoria University Melbourne
2007
Gold and Silver Smithing – Monash University Melbourne
2006
Bachelor of Business Entrepreneurship degree – RMIT University Melbourne
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2017
in silence, DOMINIK MERSCH GALLERY
2016
Momentary Alters, NKN Gallery, Melbourne
Mid-fall, Alaska Projects, Sydney
2014
Everything reminds me of you, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
Public memories, Conductors Project, Sydney
2012
The Life Exchange, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
And all around is Desert, Damien Minton Gallery Annex, Sydney (curated by Kim Fasher of SuperKaleidoscope)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017
The Ancestors, DOMINIK MERSCH GALLERY, Sydney – Curated by Catherine Benz
Into Abstraction II, Macquarie University Gallery, Sydney
2016
New Strokes, Gallery9, Sydney
2015
Paris/Hunter, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery
Millerntor Gallery#5, Hamburg
Wild Side: The animal in Art touring exhibition, Lake Macquarie Art Gallery & Western Plains Cultural Centre, Dubbo
Until I am there I will be here, Art Bender, The Lock-Up
2013
Mono No Aware, Linden Gallery, Melbourne (curated by SuperKaleidoscope)
Sound and Fury, Art Not Apart, Canberra
2012
Collectors Choice, Friends of the university, University of Newcastle
Traces, Leipzig Art Fair, Germany
31 Pillows, Damien Minton Gallery Annex, Sydney
Five Bells, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
2011
Kurz und Wichtig, Leipzig, Germany
Australian exhibition, Australian Embassy in Berlin
2010
A Perfect Day to Chase Tornadoes (White), Kunstquartier Bethanien Studio 1Berlin (curated by SuperKaleidoscope)
PERFORMANCES
2014 – 2016
Desires, a year long performance of living out desires in an attempt to find happiness
2014
I mouthed I love you, Wild Side group exhibition, Lake Macquarie Gallery
Until distance passes, Tiny Stadiums Festival, Erskineville Sydney (commission)
Near your sorrow, Enduring Parallels (endurance performance exhibition) The Lock-Up, Newcastle (artist & curator)
It’s too early to love you, ALASKA projects, Sydney
Public memories, Conductors Project, Sydney
2013 – 2014
Compartmentalise, a year long performance living with minimal possessions
2013
Do you love me, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
2012
Steer a steady ship, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney
2011
The weight of the physical mind, Leipzig International art program (LIA) Spinnerei Leipzig, Germany
Happiness is an extreme emotion, 12hour public performance, Berlin, Germany
Black feet, Leipzig International art program (LIA) Spinnerei Leipzig, Germany
Beyond these walls – Engels, Berlin, Germany
2017
Finalist, Cossack Art Award, Invited artist
Finalist, Calleen Art Prize
2015
Marina Abramović artists’ residency program, part of Marina Abramović: In Residence presented by Kaldor Public art projects, Project #30
2014
Finalist for photography and open prize, Fishers Ghost Award
2013
Artist residency, Lake Macquarie City Gallery, in conjunction with Christo: John Kaldor Family collection artist rooms
2012
Artist residency, Titjikala art centre NT
Artist residency, Freestone print studio, Gippsland, Victoria
Artist residency, Familia Mojo Family orphanage Nairobi, Kenya
2011
Artist residency, Leipzig International Art Program (LIA) Germany
