Often painting directly on to untreated linen rather than the traditional white canvas, Caragh Thuring creates what she refers to as ‘speculative environments’. The works require the viewer to seek their own meaning in what they see; as the artist has stated: ‘I’m not interested in constructing readable vignettes within painting, but rather in how little traces of things might trigger interpretation.’

Although her brushstrokes are often gestural and appear impulsive, each mark is carefully considered. Combined with large areas of unpainted canvas, these jolt the paintings in and out of focus, causing the eye to slip from one surface to another.

To produce her most recent paintings, the artist collaborated with weavers from Suffolk and Belgium to create canvases woven with images of her previous works. This innovative approach, which combines handcraft and industrial process, brings to light Thuring’s continued interest in sequence and repetition. Inspired by time spent in Scotland observing the comings and goings of HM Naval Base, Clyde, these works feature looming maritime vessels merged with painted tartans. In her previous paintings, human presence was only alluded to by the inclusion of industrial objects such as cranes or ropes. In Ardyne Point (2016) the outline of what appears to be two women swims into view, protruding from the brick-patterned background. High-heeled shoes, emphasised by the use of gold leaf, shimmer at the edge of the canvas. Disjointed text overlays the scene; CORMORANT ALPHA, an oil-rig platform which was built at Ardyne Point and USS HOLLAND, referring to the US Navy’s first commissioned submarine. Having long considered the intentionally unprimed, unpainted areas of her work, Thuring has perhaps found a more personal starting point with these new woven surfaces.

Caragh Thuring (b. 1972, Brussels) is an artist living and working in London. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1995 from Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, and has since exhibited widely in the UK as well as internationally. Her recent solo exhibitions include Chisenhale Gallery, London (2014) and Thomas Dane Gallery, London (2016).

Born in Singapore in 1936, Kim Lim moved to the UK at the age of 18 to study at St Martin’s School of Art in London (1954-56). Here, Lim developed a particular interest in wood carving.

Lim continued her studies at the Slade School of Art (1956-60) where she studied printmaking under the etcher, Anthony Gross, and the lithographer, Stanley Jones. After graduating in 1960, Lim exhibited her work widely. She also travelled extensively with her husband, the sculptor William Turnbull. Lim made trips to China, Indonesia, Cambodia, Egypt, Malaysia and Turkey, finding inspiration in the visual cultures of ancient civilisations: 'I found that I always responded to things that were done in earlier civilisations that seemed to have less elaboration and more strength.'

Lim’s sculptures of the 1960s and 1970s were often carved in wood and explored a narrow range of forms and shapes with great inventiveness. There is a particular emphasis on rhythm and repetition, with forms becoming flatter and never any bigger than the artist could handle herself.

These characteristics can be found in Candy (1965), a work that explores balance, colour, form and Lim’s notion of 'less elaboration and more strength’. The raw material of the work is hidden under thick layers of coloured paint. This painted surface emphasises the symmetry and repetition of the simple forms.

From 1980, Lim turned to stone carving and continued to make prints and drawings alongside her sculptural practice. Over the course of her career, Kim Lim had solo exhibitions at Tate, the National Museum of Art, Singapore, Modern Art Oxford, Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Camden Arts Centre. Her work is held in public collections across the world including the National Museum of Art, Singapore, Tate, the Arts Council Collection, the Government Art Collection and the Hepworth Wakefield.

Candy (1965) features in the Arts Council Collection touring exhibition Kaleidoscope: Colour and Sequence in 1960s British Art currently on show at Walker Art Gallery, National Museums Liverpool (until 3 June 2018).

Arts Council Collection Curator, Ann Jones explores Tania Kovats’ 2007 work, Books from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007, one of the works featured in our latest touring exhibition, On Paper, which will be shown at venues across the UK throughout 2018, until Spring 2019.

In 2006, British artist Tania Kovats collaborated with the Ruskin School of Art and the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford in order to gain an understanding of the conventions of drawing and recording archaeological finds. She then used these techniques to make a series of drawings in relation to the Uffington White Horse, a 3,000-year-old drawing carved into the chalk downland in southwest Oxfordshire.

Together with her own drawings and prints of horse-related subjects, Kovats assembled a collection of archaeological and vernacular artefacts relating to this monument and horses in general, and housed them in what she called The Museum of the White Horse, a converted horsebox that toured to various locations including hillsides and racecourses from August to December 2007. She referred to it as a ‘travelling landscape museum’ which explores ‘our relationship with the horse as a symbolic and actual point of access into the landscape and the white horse as a mythical archetype.’

Books from the Museum of the White Horse Library, Non-Fiction, 2007 is currently showing in On Paper at Perth Museum and Art Gallery, until 3 March.

The Arts Council Collection own ten works from this series.

On Paper is an Arts Council Collection touring exhibition. After Perth, it will tour to Oldham, Inverness, Wrexham, Swansea, Bath and Honiton until April 2019. The other nine works from Kovats' series in the Arts Council Collection will be shown at the Edge, University of Bath 20 April - 16 June. 

Helen Pheby, Senior Curator at Yorkshire Sculpture Park examines the work of Henry Moore whose Collection work, Helmet Head No.3, 1960 (pictured), will be on show as part of Revolt and Revolutions at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, 6 January – 15 April 2018.

Henry Moore lived to be 88, by which time he was one of the most recognised artists in the world. He created an exceptional body of over 10,000 artworks in his long and illustrious career. As he became such a monumental and revered figure in the art of the twentieth century, it is possible to overlook that Moore was once an unknown young man, with progressive ideas about art and life.

Moore’s upbringing in a mining family and community in Castleford gave him a lifelong sense of social justice and the rights of workers, informed in part by his father’s friendship with the first president of the trade union of the Yorkshire miners. Moore voluntarily signed up to serve in the First World War in 1917. His role in the Battle of Cambrai is variously described as having taken charge of the battalion after his Lance Corporal became inebriated, or that he managed to stop him from drinking. What is known is that he was one of only 52 men out of 400 to answer the roll call after three days of intense fighting. He was subsequently invalided out of the army due to mustard gas poisoning, which would affect his health and voice for the rest of his life.

Moore very rarely discussed his experience of war, but in a private letter a few years later wrote that his belief in God had been undermined by the things he saw and experienced: ‘the great bloodshed and the pain, the insufferable agony and the depravity, the tears and inhuman devilishness of the war’.[1] Helmet Head No.3 (1960) is one of a series inspired by Moore’s studies of armour in the Wallace Collection, and informed by his experience of war. He was an original member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, a highly influential organisation founded in response to a persuasive article by J B Priestley published in New Statesman in 1957.

It is interesting, then, in the exhibition Revolt and Revolutions to consider what at first might appear to be a typical sculpture by Moore in relation to more overtly activist artworks and so better understand his impact on art and the world. It is, therefore, highly appropriate that the new episode of the important series FF Gaiden by Larry Achiampong and David Blandy gives voice to a community leader from Castleford, Moore’s hometown.

Revolt and Revolutions, a National Partners Exhibition, is at Yorkshire Sculpture Park from 6 January until 15 April 2018.

[1] Henry Moore letter to Lucie Margarita Dufty, known as Greta, 1919 or 1920, The Henry Moore Foundation Archive

Across seven decades, Tess Jaray has produced an extensive body of work of unwavering quality, one that spans painting, drawing and printmaking, and includes major commissions to redesign public spaces.

Although at first glance Jaray’s oeuvre could be considered abstract, it draws inspiration from a wide range of sources, from the perspectives of Early Renaissance painting and architecture, to neatly-planted hedgerows and ornamental gardens, to the patterned light cast through railings and screens. Jaray’s meditative compositions invite us to contemplate the quiet, indeterminate space between things; between darkness and light, proximity and infinity, between ourselves and the wider world.

Born in Vienna in 1937, Tess Jaray fled Austria with her family the following year due to the threat of war and persecution, finding sanctuary in the UK. In 1957, having completed her studies at St Martin’s School of Art and before taking up a place at the Slade, Jaray returned to Vienna for a holiday with her parents, observing its cultural treasures with fresh eyes. She was immediately struck by the mysterious, dimly-lit gothic interior of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, its vertiginous tree-like pillars branching into ornate vaulted ceilings, and the green repeat patterns of the tiled roof. Recollections of the cathedral gestated in Jaray’s mind for some years before finally finding outlet in a number of paintings produced during 1963 and 1964.

St. Stephen’s Way (1964) is a fine example of Jaray’s work of this period. This painting features a series of vaulted forms which appear to hover and glide through deep space. Straight lines stretch and bend across the canvas to forge sensuous curves, adding to the sense of gentle motion and passage. There is a playful sense of looking across at a painting and, at the same time, looking up into vast architectural space: the critic Jasia Reichardt aptly perceived Jaray’s early work as a kind of ‘ceiling geography’. Despite the influence of the gothic architecture of the past, the work conveys a sense of timelessness, perhaps even a futuristic quality.

Jeremy Deller’s work is largely collaborative and participatory, seeking to form new connections between contrasting histories and communities.

Describing himself as a ‘self-taught conceptual artist’, he will often orchestrate events such as historical re-enactments and processions, as well as open-ended projects. He is known for The Battle of Orgreave (2001), in which he brought together almost 1,000 people to publically re-stage the clash between police and protesters during the 1984 Miners’ Strike.

The History of the World (1998) was the starting point for the wider music project Acid Brass, a musical collaboration between the artist and the Williams Fairey Brass Band. This saw renowned acid house tracks re-configured and performed by a traditional brass ensemble. The work consists of a flow diagram, which forges a link between the two genres, via other musical styles, social events and traditions.

"I drew this diagram about the social, political and musical connections between house music and brass bands – it shows a thought process in action. It was also about Britain and British history in the twentieth century and how the country had changed from being industrial to post-industrial. It was the visual justification for Acid Brass. Without this diagram, the musical project Acid Brass would not have a conceptual backbone."
 Jeremy Deller.

The History of the World can be seen at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, as part of our National Partnership Programme exhibition Now, Today, Tomorrow and Always, until 8 October 2017.

Browse all works in the Collection by Jeremy Deller

Born in Malta in 1960 and raised in Birmingham, Keith Piper studied art at Trent Polytechnic and The Royal College of Art. He was a founder member of the BLK Art Group in the 1980s. The group fought to raise the profile of black artists through exhibitions and conferences, a contribution whose significance is only now being recognized in the development of 20th century British art.

Piper's initial interests in collage and print media contributed to a pioneering use of early computer technology, not only as a tool for video editing and effects but also for it's potential interactivity, exemplified by his 1997 CDRom and website for inIVA, Relocating the Remains. Piper's multi-screen, multi-media installations, often taking their sources from popular sources such as television, explore representations of race within history and culture.

Over the past 30 years Piper has used a variety of media, from painting, photography and installation to digital media, video and computer based interactivity. His work has shown extensively; with solo exhibitions at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, The Camden Arts Centre, London, The Orchard Gallery, Derry and The New Museum, New York.

Unearthing the Banker's Bones, a new Arts Council Collection 70th Anniversary commission by Keith Piper premiered as part of the artist’s solo show of the same name at Liverpool’s Bluecoat Gallery, 28 October – 22 January 2017.

Unearthing the Banker’s Bones is currently on tour at New Art Exchange in Nottingham, 1 April – 11 June.

Artist's website

This month’s Artist Profile focuses on Sunil Gupta, one of the featured artists in the Arts Council Collection National Partners Programme exhibition Captured Beauty, currently on view at Newlyn Art Gallery in Cornwall. 

Sunil Gupta presents his broad oeuvre as a reflection of his own identity and lived experiences. Themes like diaspora, race, homosexuality and HIV are at the core of his powerful photographs.

Born in New Delhi in 1953, he migrated to Canada with his family at the age of fifteen. He studied photography at the New York School for Social Research and later at the Royal College of Art in London. His first pictures were taken around Christopher Street in Manhattan in 1976, where he used his camera as a tool for open expression, capturing both the openness of the gay liberation movement as well as his own ‘coming out’ as an artist.

In 1986, Gupta returned to India to produce Exiles, commissioned by The Photographers' Gallery in London. In this series, he photographed gay men in front of emblematic tourist sites in New Delhi, capturing intimate portraits in open, public spaces.

Through this project, Gupta aimed to give visibility to the Indian gay community at a time when homosexuality was highly stigmatised and still criminalised in India, revealing the tensions between tradition and modernity.

Born in Australia in 1977, Whitstable-based artist Benedict Drew uses a combination of video, audio and sculptural elements to reflect on society’s ambivalent relationship with technology. Exploring the psychedelic potential of music and art, his often anarchic installations are intended as an escape route from and a critical response to what he calls ‘the horrors of the modern world.’

A large, fluorescent image of Richard Branson, with orange cables protruding from his eyes, takes centre stage in Benedict Drew: KAPUT. This recently acquired Arts Council Collection work, currently on show at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, explores the concept of space tourism through a thrilling multi-faceted installation.

Using a combination of video, audio and sculptural elements, Drew reflects on society’s uncertain relationship with technology. Beneath the image of Branson – who founded Virgin Galactic, the first company dedicated to civilian space travel - Virgin spacecrafts soar across two screens, a foil backdrop flickers and the room buzzes with the sound of feedback, accompanied by the ecstatic sound of a saxophone.

Psychedelic colours and music combine to create an environment that appears to be straight from the artist’s imagination.

“KAPUT considers how the once utopian idea of space tourism was lost to the ultimate oligarch adventure, fronted by Virgin Galactic. Much in the same way, from the 17th century onwards, the European Grand Tour offered a tourism experience that could only be appreciated by the privileged, wealthy few. KAPUT proposes an alternative; to self-oscillate into a trance, to trust in the visions – there is knowledge in the visions – and to travel the inner spaceways.”

Benedict Drew

Benedict Drew: KAPUT, a National Partners Programme Exhibition is at Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool until 26 February 2017

Sonia Boyce’s early work uses her own experience as a young black woman to examine wider issues in society.

In Mr close-friend-of-the-family pays a visit whilst everyone else is out, news reports of rape and abuse allegations chime with her own exposure to being threatened.

The abuse of trust experienced by the woman in this drawing reflects some of Boyce’s concerns about power relationships between men and women, adult and children, and guardians and trustees.

The man' head has been cropped so that the focus is on his hand, while the young woman stares directly out at the viewer. This increases the feeling of claustrophobia and impending danger and creates a triangular relationship between the aggressor's hand, the victim's gaze and the viewer. Many of Boyce's drawings in the mid 1980s were brightly coloured, but in this work she restricts herself to charcoal, citing the influence of light and dark in film noir.

Sonia Boyce’s work can be seen as part The Place is Here at Nottingham Contemporary, 4 February until 1 May 2017.