In this artwork, nineteen oil colours are categorized, framed and the presented for official discontinuance, mimicking the thoroughness of Winsor & Newton, and ceremonious British traditions. Göllner painted 48 colour samples on small canvasses and then arranged them according to their serial numbers, by their mineral formulations (mars, permanent, cobalt) and then by their series (one through seven). In total, there are eleven framed sets. When this work was first exhibited (June 1997, Saw Gallery, Ottawa) it was presented as an installation piece, where the walls were painted mint green with a white vinyl appliqué of the Winsor & Newton logo and title applied to the wall. However the work need not been displayed in this way: it has also been shown with the eleven sets installed on a white wall with an accompanying text panel, explaining each category.

While working in an art supply store in Ottawa, Göllner was inspired to make this piece when the store manager asked him to remove nineteen Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colours paints from a merchandise shelf because they were being reformulated or discontinued. According to the artist, he is interested in found colours and patterns, especially as the basis for abstract artwork.

This modernist grid, as Göllner describes it, revolves around the themes of categorization and discontinuation and has been transformed into something foreboding and cautionary. Obsolesence and the relationship between taste and industry are highlighted. The frames lend the work a stately formality, as if enacting or preserving historic artifacts, a hyperbolic gesture typical of the undercurrent of irreverent humour in Göllner’s art.