He who drinks the juice of the stone

Caragh Thuring (1972 - )

Oil on cotton woven with Trevira CS

2016

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: UK
    City: London
    Place: Government Art Collection

    The sprawling red lines sprayed across this large canvas by Caragh Thuring, name every church that still stands within London’s financial district. Beneath the red writing, handwritten in capital black letters, are the names and locations of London skyscrapers, including the Cheese Grater, the Gherkin and the Walkie Talkie. These structures have appeared on, and significantly altered, the appearance of London’s landscape in only a matter of a few years. Thuring’s work acts as a form of mapping exercise, indicating how the buildings have literally inserted themselves into the city of London’s historical fabric, displacing the past and reconstituting meaning. Commenting on the new buildings, Thuring reflects how they are:

    '… wedged in between these churches. I always saw churches as these kinds of rebellious spaces that were untouchable. They were empty and had sort of lost their function. I wanted to create a map of the City, but without literally drawing a map, and that was a way of doing it. I also always wanted to make word paintings and that fused those two things together. It’s topographical in a way'.


  • About the artist
    Caragh Thuring was born in Brussels and now lives and works in London. Since 2009, she has had solo exhibitions at the Thomas Dane Gallery in London, and at Simon Preston Gallery, New York. In 2018, she had a solo exhibition at Anthony Meiers Fine Arts in San Francisco; and participated in group exhibitions including Shadowed Forms at Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen; and Virginia Woolf: An exhibition inspired by her writings at Tate St Ives – a show that tours to Chichester and Cambridge.
  • Explore
    Places
    Subjects
    text-based work
    Materials & Techniques
    cotton, oil, tapestry, oil painting, Trevira CS
  • Details
    Artist
    Caragh Thuring (1972 - )
    Title
    He who drinks the juice of the stone
    Date
    2016
    Medium
    Oil on cotton woven with Trevira CS
    Dimensions
    height: 190.2 cm, width: 247.8 cm
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Thomas Dane Gallery, May 2017
    Inscription
    verso tcr on canvas foldback: C. Thuring 2016
    Provenance
    Thomas Dane Gallery; purchased May 2017
    GAC number
    18723