TURN Gallery is pleased to present Lottie and James, an intimate look at Australian artists Lottie Consalvo and James Drinkwater opening in our Parlour Room Thursday September 12th from 6 - 8 pm. 

For two decades Lottie Consalvo and James Drinkwater have shared both domestic and work spaces, the two fused as are the mind and heart. In the same way they have navigated the interior of their domestic lives before and during parenthood, anything that can be split down the middle is. Acting as boundaries - a chalk line, a line of tape, book shelves, painting racks, and occasionally walls have charted individual space within shared studios. However, no delineation has stopped the two meeting for lunch. Lunch is sacred. 

In each artists’ practice unspoken working boundaries develop, dissolve and renew. The essential staple is never relying on the other’s eyes and sensibilities during studio hours. Outside of those hours nothing is off limits. Eventual exchanges occur and the essential trust and council provided to each other is nothing short of absolute. 

There are of course significant disparates between the two practices, contrasting rhythms and divergent pictorial pursuits. It's an ever changing and tidal organism like an unfurled sail available to the elements. This openness is central to the function of their private universe. 

Consalvo's lexicon surveys the mind and visits locations beyond the tangible world, announcing places which mysteriously remain unseen and without name. Using primarily a 'sculptors pallet', tonality and totemic configurations telegraph her position in an otherwise unexplored realm. Drinkwater’s impasto paintings embrace his uniquely familiar theatre of the domestic. His bold implementation of color, form, texture and found objects transmit his conversation with and love for life and family. 

Lottie Consalvo works across painting, video, performance and sculpture. In 2015, Consalvo completed a residency with Marina Abramovic as part of Kaldor Public Art Projects 30 in Sydney Australia, and an exhibition at Hamburg’s Millerntor Gallery #5, Germany. In 2018, she held her first solo museum exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art in Victoria Australia and has continued to show in institutions across Australia. More recently Consalvo has held solo exhibitions in Sydney, Australia and Auckland, New Zealand. Group exhibitions including Sherbet Green Gallery, London and Tripoli Gallery, New York. Consalvo has participated in international residencies including the Cite Des Arts (Paris), Desa (Indonesia), LIA , Leipzig International Art Residency (Germany). Consalvo’s work has been exhibited in Germany, Mexico, England, America and New Zealand—and is held in various esteemed collections including Onna House, New York and Australian and New Zealand collections such as Artbank, Newcastle Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Gippsland Regional Art Gallery, Macquarie University, Newcastle University, Museum of Art and Culture Lake Macquarie, and The Stevenson Collection. She currently lives and works in Newcastle, Australia.

James Drinkwater is a painter and sculptor. He studied at the National Art School, Sydney and has held over 30 solo exhibitions since 2004. A major survey exhibition, ‘The Sea Calls me by Name’, was held in 2019 at the Newcastle Art Gallery. In 2022 Drinkwater was included in the seminal exhibition ‘Singing In Unison’— curated by Phong H. Bui and Cal Mckeever alongside Sean Scully, Julian Schnabel, Lauren Bon, Ron Gorchov and Dorothea Rockburne. The same year, he collaborated on a new Ballet 'Storm Approaching Wangi — and other desires’ with choreographers Skip Willcox, Belle Beasely and composer Joseph Franklin, where Drinkwater designed the sets and costumes and performed in the final scene. In 2023 there were two surveys of his work; ‘Passage’ at the NCCA, Darwin and ‘At Mid Career’ in Canberra, at the The Drill Hall Gallery, Australian National University, curated by Terance Maloon. He has participated in several shows internationally, most recently in 2024 "Somewhere between the sea and the table" with VIGO Gallery which was held at the Wellington Arch Museum (London), ‘Mastering disorder’ with Cadet Capela (Paris), and ‘Rue des Fleurus’ with Allouche Benias Gallery (Athens). He has been awarded the Marten Bequest Scholarship, the Brett Whiteley Travelling Scholarship, the John Olsen National Art School Life Drawing Prize and has been a finalist in many prizes including the Wynne Prize three times, Sulman Prize and the Dobell Drawing Prize. James Drinkwater work is held in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, HOTA Gallery, Bendigo Art Gallery, Newcastle Art Gallery, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Artbank, Macquarie Bank, Macquarie University, Newcastle University, Schnabel Collection, New York, Monash University, Allens Law Firm and significant private collections both in Australia and Europe and United States. He currently lives and works in Newcastle, Australia. 

Lottie and James will open in our Parlour Room Thursday, September 12th from 6 - 8 pm along with our solo exhibition by Li Jun in the gallery’s main space. The show will be on view until Saturday, October 19th. We are located on the 2nd floor of 32 East 68th Street NY, NY 10065. The gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday 12 - 6pm. For further information, contact Annika at ap@turngallerynyc.com.