Chris Gollon (1953 – 25 April 2017) was a British artist.
Gollon was born in London, England. He lived near London, working from his studio in Surrey. He regularly exhibited in London and Monmouth with IAP Fine Art. He had many solo museum exhibitions in the UK and has works in museum collections including the British Museum.
Work
In 1989, Gollon was a finalist in The Spectator Prize. His first solo museum exhibition was at the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull in 1993, which was then Museum Gallery of the Year. The exhibition was televised on BBC Look North. Chris Gollon was a friend of The Skids and enjoyed the company of musicians. In 1998, he exhibited with David Bowie, Yoko Ono, and Gavin Turk in 'ROOT' created by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, a crossover exhibition of contemporary music and art at Chisenhale Gallery, London. For 'ROOT' Thurston Moore sent Gollon a 52-second tape and challenged him to make either a work of music or of art in response. Gollon produced a painting entitled 'House of Sleep' for the 'ROOT' exhibition, which began his nineteen year fascination with artistic boundary crossing, and how one art form can take another into new areas of thought and feeling and vice versa.'House of Sleep' sold into a private collection in 1998, but it was loaned for the museum retrospective in 2019 at Huddersfield Art Gallery, in the catalogue for which Thurston Moore wrote "Chris Gollon's work moves beyond painting as singular expression, where music and its essence of spiritual sentience, comes into accord, creating a personal yet welcoming environment, alive and free. I am proud to have had a moment where we colluded via the gestures of mutual acquaintance. His creative and modest genius is eternal."
In 2000, Gollon gained a commission from the Church of England for fourteen Stations of the Cross paintings for a Grade I listed London church designed by Sir John Soane, St John on Bethnal Green, located next to the V&A Museum of Childhood. Gollon was a controversial choice, since he was not a practising Christian. In order to carry out the commission, and for theological matters, he agreed to collaborate with Fr Alan Green, Rector of the church.
In 2001, a special exhibition of his work was held at the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames, because until 2005 Gollon had a connection with the river; having a studio on Platts Eyot, a private island on the River Thames near Hampton Court west of London. The museum, aided by the Victoria and Albert Museum, acquired a work by Gollon entitled Big Fish Eat Little Fish, a centrepiece of the exhibition.
His painting of the fourth Station of the Cross (Jesus meets his Mother) was shown in the exhibition Presence: Images of Christ for the Third Millennium in St Paul's Cathedral in 2004, along with works by Bill Viola, Tracey Emin, Maggi Hambling and Craigie Aitchison. In the same year, he began painting images of Albert Einstein, before the 50th anniversary of Einstein's death in 2005 and before the centenary in 2005 of the General Theory of Relativity. Partially inspired by a lyric in Bob Dylan's ballad "Desolation Row", Chris Gollon painted "Einstein & The Jealous Monk". This painting was subsequently purchased by the Huddersfield Art Gallery in West Yorkshire, where it hangs in the museum's permanent collection alongside Sir Jacob Epstein's bust of Einstein, and works by Francis Bacon, Walter Sickert, Henry Moore and L.S. Lowry.
In 2007, Chris Gollon was commissioned to paint the Henley Regatta by Paul Mainds, Chief Executive of the River and Rowing Museum. The museum's collection holds Raoul Dufy's painting 'Regatta at Henley'. Since the Henley Royal Regatta has no silver or bronze medals, only win or lose, Gollon decided to focus with great empathy on the losing crew. The final work entitled "Gollon at Henley" was unveiled in 2008, and is now displayed along with works by Dufy, John Piper, and Julian Trevelyan in the museum's permanent collection.
A chance meeting in 2005 between Chris Gollon and filmmakers JABOD led to the creation of a neologism, and a new cinematic art work: "Kaleidomorphism One". Fifteen years of Gollon's paintings and imagery, together with music that he has selected (including Calexico and Paolo Conte), combine with JABOD's design, rhythm and effects to create a film installation of 20 minutes length. Kaleidomorphism One was premiered at the East End Film Festival in 2008.