Clare Thackway Under the sea

I began this painting after finding out I was pregnant with my second child. At the time my eldest daughter loved to hide under a blanket and sing ‘under the water, under the sea, up came my little ship and up came me’. This poem, for me, became symbolic of the subconscious rising to the surface of understanding.

In this painting, her little figure is almost completely concealed by the artifice of fabric, camouflaged against the black-and-white drapery. The disguised body serves as a performative metaphor for my skin veiling the growing life within me and the contemplation of the future unknown.

Clare Thackway, 2018