CHRISTIAN FURR
"Known as a colourist and a consummate paint-handler, Christian’s influences are remarkably diverse. Apart from the visual arts, music and literature are integral; he is a voracious reader, an omnivorous listener. Inspiration arrives from many directions – a fragment of Rumi poetry, a lyric from The Doors, a quote from Bukowski, William Blake sonnets, the film Zabriskie Point by Antonioni. The symbols of his far-reaching interests find their way into his work, sometimes overtly, sometimes submerged".
Fran Kaufman
Liu Shiming Art Foundation
Born in 1966, Christian Furr grew up in the north east of England and went onto attend De Montfort University, where he gained a First Class degree in Fine Art.
In 1995, aged just 28, Furr became the youngest officially commissioned artist to paint HM Queen Elizabeth II, after the Queen personally chose him. Since then, Furr's paintings have adorned the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, the Saatchi Gallery, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Society of Arts and are held in the private collection of The Vatican. In 2004, along with Stephen Fry, he was awarded the Association of Colleges' Award at the House of Commons, given to further education alumni who have gone on to acheive excellence in their field of expertise. Former winners include Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Choo.
The 'Jouissance' series began in 2015, the title being a French word for physical or emotional pleasure. As well as featuring in his retrospective, this series continues as part of his artist practice to the present day. Furr describes it as his ‘Vanitas Motif’, a genre made popular in 17th Century Dutch and Flemish painting, using symbols to remind the viewer of the transience of life, the vanity of the pursuit of pleasure and material possessions when faced with the inevitability of mortality. These 'Jouissance' works are indeed ephemeral, moreover, to him they are a deep exploration of ideas, born from a single witnessed fake explosion in a lab, then adopted as a conceptual framework. "My seeing life as a beautiful instant" he says.
As discussed by Fran Kaufmann in 2015, in an essay written about Furr - "Referencing the spectacular ending of Zabriskie Point, a five-minute sequence of a single explosion, repeated in super slow motion, demonstrates the abstract quality of film itself. Actual objects are transformed into a riot of color and form".
Furr titles each piece to evoke different emotions, whether celestial sensation, ecstacy or destruction; the very symbols for the release of energy and emotion that is of life itself. He explores the concept that a single explosion can manifest as a myriad of meanings, each piece unique. He applies colours that range from pale to vivid blues, shocking pinks, to mauves, reds and greens, some with shimmering diamond dust on both canvas and paper.
Furr has exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions both in the UK and internationally, as well as collaborative projects since 1993. His works are held in the private collections of many high profile individuals across the world, and in the collections among others of Blenheim Palace and the Ritz Hotel, London. His most recent commissions include a 2.7 metre painting of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, which now hangs in the refurbished lobby of the Dorchester Hotel (2023,) and a trompe-l'œil tapestry painting depicting early settlers arriving in the Bay of Singapore. The latter, titled 'Arrival', hangs in the Edition Hotel, Singapore (2023).