Artists collection

The catalyst for the idea of men and women in a space with a non-obvious narrative started with ‘There’s a Place 1993’ and then 10 years later in 2003 Furr painted 'Mirrors' which is a self portrait of Furr and his wife Emma. Both "Theres a Place" and 'Mirrors" have a similar 'fly on the wall' feeling. "The first time I used friends as the subject and next time it was me and Emma. So it’s quite honest. It is a realist painting about people in a situation. A scene of everyday life or existence although the mirror image is slightly different. I like playing around with mirrors in paintings and as our new wardrobe had sliding doors with mirrors on I took this opportunity to offer a different image." He had moved into a new home with their young daughters. It is an unidealized work and has elements of the ‘kitchen sink’. It depicts the couple in the new home they had moved into which was still in a state of refurbishment. Visible are floorboards where a carpet has been taken up and remnants of underlay are left.
Evident is the ‘situationism’ of Sartre. It was first inspired by the song ‘Underwear’ by Pulp. Emma and Christian saw them at the Brixton Academy in 2001. Contextually it was painted at the dawn of CCTV and the ‘reality show’ phase of television with voyeuristic shows such as ‘Big Brother’ which in turn were born out of the 1971 sociological ‘Stanford Prison Experiment’.