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Rebecca Liu
Rebecca Liu is a commissioning editor at Guardian Saturday and a staff writer at Another Gaze.

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There are only girls on the internet

Book Review

August 2022

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

August 2022

I remember the first time I saw it, like a freshly alert hare alarmed by movement in the distant grasslands. It was 2013. Model...

Book Review

September 2020

Pankaj Mishra’s ‘Bland Fanatics’

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

September 2020

The Anglo-American commentariat is full of lofty egos. Pankaj Mishra has developed a reputation as their great deflater. ‘Watch...

When I first visited Caragh Thuring in her east London studio, there was an old man lurking in the corner He was bearded and curly haired, with orange cheeks, peppery eyes and bright lips that were puckered into a small red beak He looked surprised, maybe a little embarrassed and, although this won’t mean much to you, a little like my dad, which is how Thuring and I continue to refer to him ‘I couldn’t tell you where he came from’, she said, looking over his fading features (which I should mention were rendered once on linen, and again to the left on a dog-eared piece of paper) ‘I was going to stick him on top of another painting, but I thought that would be a bit much, so I’m saving him for later’   This approach is indicative of Thuring’s painterly methodology, one characterised by reclamation and continuation A healthy disposophobic, Thuring hoards imagery and ideas from all walks of life, and then rolls them out slowly, revisiting certain particularities from linen to linen Her latest works, on display across Thomas Dane’s twin London spaces until January, are informed by Ardyne Point, a now-derelict development to the southwest of Dunoon in Scotland which, framed by towering oil rigs, once sought permission to manage the nuclear waste from decommissioned submarines (the application was withdrawn following protests from local residents) Contrastingly, her exhibition at London’s Chisenhale Gallery last year involved a number of serene works inspired by the ‘picture windows’ of Dutch suburban homes, their white ledges interrupted by smatterings of leaves and spotty ornamental vases   In spite of their seemingly unrelated starting points – from the residential to the rigs – the two bodies of work remain visually linked Brickwork, for instance, a leitmotif that Thuring adopted shortly after leaving college in 1995 as a ‘shortcut’ to signify construction, lurks in the background of both – previously, these bricks have been painted, now they are woven into the very fabric onto which the paintings are built Silhouettes of figures, too, fade in and out, as do man-made structures, graphic patterns, and expanses of untouched

Contributor

August 2019

Rebecca Liu

Contributor

August 2019

Rebecca Liu is a commissioning editor at Guardian Saturday and a staff writer at Another Gaze.

Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror’

Book Review

August 2019

Rebecca Liu

Book Review

August 2019

Talk about the fates of young professional women today and you will often alight on two themes: the anxieties that come with living in...

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fiction

April 2013

How to be an Astronaut

J. D. A. Winslow

fiction

April 2013

I am standing in front of a room full of people reading out a story. The room is dark....

fiction

June 2017

Ferocity

Nicola Lagioia

TR. Antony Shugaar

fiction

June 2017

A pale three-quarter moon lit up the state highway at two in the morning. The road connected the province...

Interview

April 2012

Interview with Grant Gee

Evan Harris

Interview

April 2012

As the theatre is relit and the credits roll on Grant Gee’s latest film, Patience (After Sebald), an essay on...

 

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