ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: CLEMENTINE MACONACHIE

ARDEN + WHITE'S artist, Clementine Stoney Maconachie, joins us this week from Paris with a captivating photo journal of her experience as an artist and Olympian.

Stoney Maconachie with Hebel totem

Photo credit: Clementine Stoney Maconachie/Jack E Phillips

Maconachie, a former Olympian, now artist, represented Australia at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, finishing thirteenth in the 200-meter backstroke. Over 20 years later, she returns to the Olympics as one of six Olympian Artists showcasing their work at the Palais de Tokyo during the Paris Olympic Games.

Clementine Stoney Maconachie, Olympic games 2000

In 2003, an illness forced Maconachie to quit swimming. It was not the ending she had in mind for her swimming career. "For two years, I slept for 20 hours a day, then 18 hours a day, and slowly over time, I returned to regular functioning," she recalls. The Olympian artist has a black pool line tattooed on her left arm in honour of the hours she'd spent training. "I'd wanted Olympic rings as a tattoo, but the compromise was a pool line."

Once recovered, Maconachie began rebuilding her life beyond the pool, venturing into the worlds of art and fashion-a transition not as surprising as it might seem. With an abstract painter for a mother, she grew up surrounded by art.

"I loved going to galleries. Art was always around, always an influence, and always something I loved-a passion," she explains.

However, with her focus on swimming, she didn't study art in school and never envisioned a career as a sculptor. It took "time and confidence," and the end of her swimming career, to develop her artistic practice. After years of developing her practice, Maconachie began creating installations and collaborating with fashion brands to show her art and has consistently participated in artist-in-residence opportunities, exhibitions and special projects for the past seven years.

Maconachie's iconic wall sculptures in studio

Maconachie's work is centered on balance and proportion, exploring the contrast between hard materials and soft shapes. Known for her irregular abstract totems of stacked organic shapes and fluid metal folds, Maconachie is inspired first by materials and then by form. She carves and hand-sands individual pieces, which are then stacked vertically. Using her body weight as a tool, she creates bent shapes from industrial metal sheets, resulting in soft, folded forms or twisted pieces made from steel, aluminum, and brass.

In 2023 Maconachie participated in a group show with ARDEN + WHITE, followed by the artist's US debut solo exhibition, Unfolding, in the gallery at the turn of the new year, and inclusion in a group presentation by the gallery in NYC in May 2024.

Unfolding, Clementine Stoney Maconachie solo exhibition at ARDEN + WHITE, 2024

Maconachie was invited to participate in Olympic Artists, an exhibition that opened on July 25th at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris as part of the 2024 Olympic Summer Games. She is one of six Olympians turned artists selected by the International Olympic Committee to create works for this exhibit related to the 2024 games.

"IT'S SUCH AN HONOR TO TAKE PART IN THIS EXHIBITION," SHE SAID. "IT'S A WONDERFUL WAY TO COMPLETE MY OLYMPIC JOURNEY, WHICH ALWAYS FELT UNFINISHED."

Clementine Stoney Maconachie, Oylmpic Artists, Tokyo des Palais, Paris, July 2024

The artist managed to secure tickets to two nights of Olympic swimming events, where she enthusiastically cheered on the Australian team and captured photos to share with us. Explore Maconachie's photo journal here.