A collection of original circular oil paintings, large hand painted /diamond dust works on canvas and limited edition prints with and without diamond dust on archival paper.

Text from Christian Furr’s solo exhibition of the Jouissance series ‘Rapture’ at the Noon Powell Gallery, London (18.9.25 – 19.10.25)

The Vanitas concept stands for vanity of humankind and the brevity of life which is expressed in Vanitas painting by juxtaposing a symbol of life with one for death… The image of life seems ever more precious when it is shown to be fleeting.

Ora Lerman ‘Contemporary Vanitas’, Arts Magazine, 1988

‘Rapture’ is an inaugural and comprehensive solo exhibition of British artist, Christian Furr’s celebrated ‘Jouissance’ series.

Across the gallery walls are works depicting the artist’s personal ‘Vanitas’ motif: a distinctive, luminescent explosion emerging from the darkness in various forms, inspired by a genre made popular in 17th Century Dutch and Flemish painting using symbols to remind the viewer of the transience of life. Each piece is titled with lines from love poems to evoke different emotions. Colours range from pale to vivid blues, pinks, mauves, reds and greens.

The collection of around 38 works is presented and curated over the two floors of NoonPowell Fine Art’s gallery in Richmond, during the course of the exhibition from 18th September – 19th October 2025. The collection includes original paintings alongside hand-finished mono-prints, both on canvas and paper and some sprinkled with diamond dust.

The idea for the series originally came in 2009 when Furr saw a stock film of a computer generated explosion at a VFX company. After slowing it down and playing it backwards and forwards, he realised it would make a poetic image about time; immortalising in paint a visual effect (that didn’t actually exist) of something ceasing to exist. The first painting in the series ‘The Emancipation of the Dissonance’ was created in 2011. After the original oil paintings, the hand finished coloured works were created – the oil paintings scanned then altered digitally and coloured. The coloured images are then printed and, if they are canvases, painted over and diamond dust is applied on the top of particular pieces. The title for the series ‘Jouissance’ is a French word meaning physical or intellectual pleasure, delight or ecstasy and refers to love itself. As Christian Furr says –

“The explosion as a symbol or motif could be seen as the logical conclusion of artists fascination over the centuries with ‘De Natura, Vanitas’ and effect. It conjures up many possibilities: celestial sensation, spirit, destruction and blossoming.

My explosion series is about seeing life as a beautiful instant. It is about the brevity of life with the everlasting nature of Love and it has become my ‘Vanitas’ motif. It is an open celebration of the sensory because that is what pure colour is. All the different colours conjure different feelings. For me, The yellow reminds me of sunshine, the blue has mystery or another worldly feeling, but everybody has their own instinctive response. The explosion is at once a symbol of chaos and release with the colours adding to the sensation. My Jouissance paintings are about formlessness and what lies beyond.”

Like artists and poets before him, Furr explores themes fundamental to the human condition. His works are among the most beautiful vanitas – dialogues about life and death, portrayals of beauty and ephemerality encapsulated in an image of something exploding. The ‘something’ here is the ambiguity in these jewel-like works with each work bringing mystery, allowing the viewer to see many things – a flower, a sprite, a blossom, for instance.

Known as a colourist and a consummate paint-handler, Christian’s influences are remarkably diverse. Apart from the visual arts, music and literature are integral; he is a voracious reader, an omnivorous listener. Inspiration arrives from many directions – a fragment of Rumi poetry, a lyric from The Doors, a quote from Bukowski, William Blake sonnets, the film Zabriskie Point by Antonioni. The symbols of his far-reaching interests find their way into his work, sometimes overtly, sometimes submerged.

Fran Kaufman
Liu Shiming Art Foundation

Born in 1966, Christian Furr grew up in the north east of England and went onto attend De Montfort University, where he gained a First Class degree in Fine Art.

In 1995, aged just 28, Furr became the youngest officially commissioned artist to paint HM Queen Elizabeth II, after the Queen personally chose him. Since then, Furr’s portrait paintings have adorned the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, the Saatchi Gallery, the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, the Royal Society of Arts and are held in the private collection of The Vatican. In 2004, along with Stephen Fry, he was awarded the Association of Colleges’ Award at the House of Commons, given to further education alumni who have gone on to acheive excellence in their field of expertise. Former winners include Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Choo.

While remaining highly sought after for his portrait commissions, Furr has continued to explore and experiment with new concepts, with his oeuvre celebrated and presented in a mid-career retrospective exhibition at the Williamson Art Gallery and Museum in 2019.