No access but through the sky

Jan Murphy Gallery, Brisbane 2022

Essay by Kim Fasher

I am in the bush, and I imagine no way out, and I’m calling but there’s no sound, and there is no determined thing I am calling for, or place I am trying to arrive at, and the only entry or exit is through the sky, and even then, it doesn’t take you anywhere in particular.
LOTTIE CONSALVO

Lottie Consalvo’s exhibition “No entry but through the sky” continues her exploration of formlessness and the unknown. Shortly before starting this body of work, the artist began a practice of walking through dense bushland. The walks were taken without goal or intention, in an area where there were no tracks to follow, and each path was different from the last. When she couldn’t be in the bush, the walks were continued in her mind. These were not recollections of what she had already seen but rather what she imagined lay beyond where she last stopped - the internal landscape of memory and imagination holding equal significance to physical experience. These experiments with shifts in perception, and practices of ‘intentional non-intentionality’, form the current basis for her work. 

Consalvo says “The bush has taught me the importance of unpredictability, of not-knowing, and of letting go to make room for something else to happen”. In the studio she now paints in small intense bursts for a few hours at a time. Spontaneity and directness are embraced by focusing on the immediate action rather than the image as a whole, mirroring her walking process. Consalvo exits the studio before rational afterthought stifles this process of indeterminacy and the paintings are put away out of sight for some weeks, suspended, until in Consalvo’s words, ‘the hand has had enough time to forget’. At this point she returns to the work and the process begins again. It is a point of discipline to accept this passive role – the disciplined use of chance for discovery. The paintings become momentary combinations of unmediated gestural mark making and internal choice. 

The legacy of American avant-garde composer John Cage’s musical compositions can be seen in Consalvo’s process of indeterminacy and chance. Among his best-known works is 4′33″ (Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds), in which the performer or performers are directed to remain utterly silent onstage for the duration of the performance. When performed the piece merely consists of silence, but as Cage says, there is no such thing. Its real purpose is to make people listen. Accounts state that at the premier, in the first movement you could hear the wind stirring outside; during the second raindrops began pattering on the roof; and during the third people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked. 

Cage famously stated that “the highest purpose is to have no purpose at all. This puts one in accordance with nature, in her manner of operation”. This is not about a lack of productivity, but rather a manner of being alert to the world. Consalvo shares this aspiration. Her paintings are an expression of an esoteric feeling that there is a deep sentience in the natural world which is mysterious and hidden echoing our own obscure and impenetrable inner worlds. With the world at the tipping point of environmental disaster, standing in front of Consalvo’s works, and understanding her unique dialogue with nature, offers a sense of possibility. The paintings ask us to pay attention and to leave room for moments where we move beyond the limitations of conditioned logical thinking. Ultimately this may renew our capacity for fresh sensation and make room for a richer and more compelling understanding of the world to take hold. 

Kim Fasher 2022