B.

Philip Clairmont’s Fireplace was originally part of a larger painting of an interior completed for a 1970s Christchurch's nightclub called ‘15 Jellies’. The painting survived a fire that closed the club and afterwards was separated into three works including Fireplace. In the late 1970s Clairmont stated: I started painting interiors in my honours year at art school because we lived in this cramped Clifford flat in Hereford Street and I spent a helluva lot of time at home there. … The house we lived in had such beautiful fireplaces surrounded by decorated tiles and things like that. … I have painting binges. Usually at night because I prefer artificial lighting. I like a lot of music because it makes me paint at different speeds. It’s almost like conducting with a paint brush. I like the gesture of painting… You’ve got to psych yourself into it. Into a state of attack really, because you've got something going on in your head.

(No! That’s wrong XXXXXX, 25 June 2016 – 30 April 2017)