Chris Gollon enjoyed painting on Indian Khadi paper for its texture and rigidity, and as with much of his still life, these paintings hint at a human drama beyond the image. One technique he employed was to deliberately make the shadows all wrong, which serves to animate the objects, so they become more than they seem. In the tradition of still life painting, lit candles represent the renewal of hope and smoke the temporality of material wealth.

The jazz version is a companion piece to the colour version and titled thus because the artist thought it looked like musical notes.