The Official Website For Chris Gollon & Archive of Works

The Private ViewWelcome to chrisgollon.com the new website providing an archive of Chris Gollon's work, plus the latest information for public, press and collectors, on his exhibitions and commissions.

Chris Gollon is an established name in British painting. Born in London in 1953, he first came to the attention of the art world as a finalist in The Spectator Prize in 1989. He has since exhibited widely in Europe and the USA. He exhibited at ART'97 Chicago, and has had six solo museum shows in the UK. In 1998, he exhibited with Yoko Ono, David Bowie and Gavin Turk in 'ROOT', a crossover exhibition of contemporary music and art created by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, at the Chisenhale Gallery, London.

In 2000, Chris Gollon accepted a major commission from the Church of England to paint 14 Stations of the Cross for a grade-one listed church in London designed in 1826 by Sir John Soane. Widely featured in the national press, the commissioned paintings were finally unveiled and used in the Good Friday service 2008 at St John on Bethnal Green, and will be installed permanently in the church by Easter 2009.

In 2001, the award-winning River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames (with the aid of the Victoria & Albert Museum) purchased Gollon's hinged triptych ‘Big Fish Eat Little Fish’, which now forms part of the permanent collection alongside works by Piper, Trevelyan and Dufy. In 2004, Chris Gollon was invited to show in St Paul's Cathedral with Bill Viola, Craigie Aitchison and Tracey Emin.

In 2005, the Huddersfield Art Gallery purchased a major work by Chris Gollon entitled ‘Einstein & The Jealous Monk’, partially inspired by a Bob Dylan lyric, and which now hangs in the permanent collection alongside works by L.S Lowry and Francis Bacon. In 2007, Gollon accepted a commission from the River & Rowing Museum to paint the Henley Royal Regatta. Unveiled in June 2008, his painting entitled ‘Gollon At Henley’ will hang permanently in the Museum's collection in juxtaposition with Raoul Dufy's ‘Regatta at Henley’.

Chris Gollon began collaborating with film makers JABOD in 2005 to create a new cinematic art work, featuring over 500 of his paintings set to music by Gavin Bryars (with Tom Waits), Paolo Conte and Calexico. The film installation, entitled ‘Kaleidomorphism’, was successfully premiered in 2008 at the East End Film Festival in London.

The Trial

Chris Gollon has been offered and accepted a unique Fellowship and Residency at the prestigious Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, (January – March 2009). Gollon’s powerful and formally innovative paintings came to the attention of the Directors of the IAS in 2007, and together with some of the world’s leading academics and creative thinkers he has now been invited to take part in a major international research project straddling all disciplines from Arts & Humanities, to Sciences and Social Sciences. Chris Gollon will produce 15 paintings during the Residency which will be shown at the Institute and will then tour. He is currently working on a series of paintings entitled ‘Early Thoughts’ , which are preliminary works and his own early thoughts on the Fellowship & Residency’s theme of ‘Being Human’.
The Exhibitions page gives details on Chris Gollon's current and future shows. The Latest News page gives details of what the Chris Gollon is currently working on.

The Chris Gollon Movie clip

This short clip is an extract from an 18-minute DVD entitled 'Quintych', which Chris Gollon made with JABOD. 'Quintych' is a study for a full-length 20-minute version, entitled 'Kaleidomorphism'. The latter is a collage of 15 years of Gollon's paintings set to music by Calexico, Tom Waits and Paolo Conte. 'Kaleidomorphism' was launched at the East End Film Festival April 2008. See Latest News page for details.

We would like to thank copyright specialists and leading London law firm Bristows for part-sponsoring this website, and also Bird & Davis Ltd, London's leading artists' manufactory and suppliers of canvases and fine art materials