Christian Furr | Jouissance & Diamond Dust Editions

In this video British artist Christian Furr talks briefly about his ongoing series: 'Jouissance'.
These works and their titles come from the poets: "They worked in words, whereas I works in images, and I want the two to work in unison".
Christian Furr
In 2015 Furr began his celebrated Jouissance series - a collection of large-scale canvases of colourful explosions, later embellished with diamond dust.
“Jouissance” translates from French as “physical or intellectual pleasure, delight, or ecstasy”. The concept first arose when he was working for a film special effects company, finding inspiration from the explosions they were creating:
Furr: "I saw a film of a computer generated explosion at a VFX company, and when I slowed it down, and played it backwards and forwards, it looked poetic to me - like a painting. I needed to paint it to make it real."
Furr draws inspiration from a range of diverse sources - a fragment of Rumi poetry, a lyric from The Doors, a letter by Stuart Sutcliffe talking about his love for Astrid Kirchherr, a quote from Charles Bukowski, a couplet from a William Blake sonnet, or a scene from Zabriskie Point by Antonioni.
The Jouissance series has become, in the artist's own words, his personal Vanitas motif. They are about the ephemerality of life, the explosion is Furr's painted symbol of ephemerality - like the butterfly, skull or candle. It appears like a beautiful moment in the darkness, like a firework or comet before it becomes one with the universe surrounding it.
Selected Jouissance paintings and editions are now showing at RedHouse Gallery in Harrogate, from Friday 21st April until Saturday 27th May: www.redhouseor...
Film credits / with thanks to:
Mairead Murray - For the use of The Olympic Cinema in Barnes, London
Emma Moir - Box Galleries, London
Barnaby Mills - Camera and audio
Ged Adamson - Music.
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