Milk Bottle − 2016

This limited edition of prints (23) was produced for ‘The Chelsea Cheese Show’, a private exhibition of Furr's cheese paintings at the Chelsea Arts Club in 2016.

According to Furr, this early painting from 1993 was a direct catalyst, for the cheese painting collection that followed several years later.

“When I was living in my studio in Whitechapel (42 New Road) in the early nineties I was never stuck for something to paint. It was a fertile time. I remember one day putting the art reference books aside and looking around the studio for some inspiration. I had painted on the wallpaper and painted a cup full of mould already so now I needed something else.

They say the best things are right under your nose. My eyes rested on a half bottle of milk on the window sill that had gone off. So I painted this. I suppose a bottle of milk is a bit kitchen sink too. They were everyday then but nowadays it’s a thing from the past. This painting was a catalystic too. It was one of my early still lives of everyday objects/food. My friend Steve Cope, who I gave this painting to as a gift, suggested in 2005 that cheese might be good subject matter so the idea must have curdled in his head.“ – Christian Furr