Partial inspiration for this painting came from Chris Gollon’s conversations with one of his collectors and friends–who is also one of the world's leading crystallographers–about the nature of matter and the behaviour of atoms. In this work, the spray paint in the background seems to hint at dark matter, and the grapes in the foreground seem both grapes and floating atoms. Chris Gollon's still life are very dynamic, which he achieved by deliberately making the shadows wrong, which animates the objects. Art historian Tamsin Pickeral writes well on Chris Gollon's innovations in the still life genre in her 2010 biography of the artist 'Humanity in Art', available from our gallery shop.

In this curiously lively still life, with its vibrant colours, the grapes on the table seem to be reverting into their constituent atoms and departing into the mystery of the universe.

Bacon and Hockney had been criticised for flatness in acrylic, yet Chris Gollon managed to avoid this by a mixture of techniques. In 2012, Liquitex, the fine artist's acrylic paint makers, took great interest in Chris Gollon's techniques, and the subtlety he achieved mixing Old Master techniques of very thin glazing, along with artist's spray paints and even the importation of printmaking techniques. They gave Gollon a major solo show in the new, bespoke gallery at their London headquarters and started supplying him with free paints, including the latest fine artist's spray paints. Chris Gollon decided to experiment with the new spray paints on fine art paper, which being much cheaper than fine linen canvases, meant he could take a great many risks, and constantly innovate. In this very creative period (2012-2014) he produced some very innovative still life. Painted in his 60th year, in selected works on paper, Chris changed his habitual signature into a distant moon.

This painting is part of the Chris Gollon Estate, please contact us for more details or click Enquire.