The Last Supper by Sejiro Avoseh

Sejiro Avoseh’s formal language is collage, the groundbreaking creative paradigm orchestrated by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the early decades of the twentieth century to breathe life into modern art.

Avoseh practice of constructing a visual bricolage consisting of mismatched images from magazines combined with colour serves as a reference to his experience with navigating relationships and the society, his life described as a mixture of different scraps still being pieced together.

In this work disembodied body parts create a phantasm of human forms which seem to float against a white background.

His painting The Last Supper is a re-imagination of Leonardo Da Vinci’s The Last Supper with Jesus in the center and his disciples around him. However, in this painting, the plate is set directly in front of Jesus and he is the only one eating.

An element of the work that draws the eye is the kind of food shown on the table. A roasted turkey, strawberries, shrimps, a glass of wine, fine china and cutlery are placed on the table in contrast to the bread and wine traditionally associated with the event. For the artist, this is a representation of modernity.

Avoseh’s last supper satirises the religious leaders and their increasing selfishness in contemporary society. He notes, “When I was growing up my mother told me stories. She taught me how to be a good son from her stories. She drew a lot of influences from the bible. When I think about her stories in relation to my own experience what I see is a disparity: the present day Jesus will not die for his disciples. He alone is king, he alone owns the table, he invites no-one else. He wants everything for himself