Chris Gollon

Dates: b.1953

Gender: Male

Nationality: British

Born in 1953, Chris Gollon is a critically acclaimed, self taught, British painter. He has held numerous solo and joint exhibitions, both in the UK and abroad. He has exhibited at Art Chicago (1997) and Root (1998) together with Yoko Ono, David Bowie and Gavin Turk. Read more…

Biography:

Born in 1953, Chris Gollon is a critically acclaimed, self taught, British painter. He has held numerous solo and joint exhibitions, both in the UK and abroad. He has exhibited at Art Chicago (1997) and Root (1998) together with Yoko Ono, David Bowie and Gavin Turk.

 In 2000 Gollon was commissioned to paint 14 Stations of the Cross for the Church of St John on Bethnal Green, a grade one listed building designed by Sir John Soane. This was one of the largest commissions by the Church of England in recent times. Although previously Gollon was not best known for his religious work, the Rector Alan Green explained, "The church of St John on Bethnal Green has had a long-standing involvement with people on the fringes of our society, the sort of people who often figure in Chris' paintings. His work contains many religious allusions and forms, which do not suggest conformity but challenge. These are the themes we wish to explore in this series of the Stations of the Cross and it is vital to have an artist who is not "safe" but perceptive and unsettling in interpreting the traditions. Chris has our confidence on all these counts." (1) The paintings were permanently installed in March 2009. The award winning writer, Sara Maitland, produced a book called Stations of the Cross based on her reflections upon Gollon’s work.

 In 2009 Gollon accepted a three-month fellowship and residency at the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University.  During this time he produced sixteen paintings, which were then exhibited at the Institute’s Being Human exhibition at the IAP Fine Art, London. 

The art critic, Jackie Wullschlager suggests that, “like Spencer, he dramatises the everyday in contemporary images and, depicting our clumsy, ridiculous ordinariness, brings alive for a modern, cynical audience the ghastly dissonance of this story of good and evil, sacrifice and humanity, answering on its own terms a 21st-century culture that regards the heroic as absurd” (2)

1.http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=133201&SubjectId=1046&Subject2Id=938

2. Jackie Wullschlager, Chief Visual Arts Critic, Financial Times