Caragh Thuring

So there's this constant filtering of everything around you and at some point they coalesce into something new

that enables you to make a painting and or start to make a work and I don't ever want to be didactic or literal with anything that's why you know I haven't made strictly figurative paintings I've always wanted to make something that isn't a readable vignette you know and sometimes I do do it when I want to so there's a there's a lot of contradictions there and it's about sort of enjoying that and exploring that and pushing all those complexities in a way so I

Sometimes it could be some of those things, but there's no rules for me in that sense.

Well, I think it's very important.

I mean, I don't personally enjoy looking at things that are hermetically sealed.

I don't want to look at an artwork and be immediately seduced and then be sort of hitting against a brick wall and not able to go any further.

I don't want that in a human being.

I don't want it in anything that I expect music.

I want there to be this sort of space for, as you say, for the viewer to enter into, to allow them to go further and not to be immediately satisfied and also...

You can't have one without the other.

It's the same in music.

You can't hear the music without the gaps.

You know, you need that space.

You know, it's like when you have an argument with somebody.

If you just keep arguing with each other, you're just arguing and no one knows what anyone's saying.

There has to be a gap so someone can actually think or sort of, you know, mull it or come back with something else.

So all of those gaps are really important in all aspects of life and definitely in paintings because...

I mean, I've always been very wary of not just throwing a load of paint at the canvas because what is that?

Because I'm making paintings, I don't need to load it with paint or fill in all the gaps.

I used to think it was the least thing I could possibly do to get what I wanted across.