The Last Supper

More than half the countries in the world have abolished the death penalty. Europe, America's closet cultural partner, does not carry out capital punishment. Polls show the majority of the British population is in favor of capital punishment there; however, even with popular support the British government does not authorize death sentences. Today, England is among the 123 countries who have abolished the death penalty in practice or in law. The Philippines abolished its death penalty in 2006. China, Iran, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia account for 94% of the executions recorded by Amnesty International in 2005. Officially, China claims 1,770 executed individuals in 2005, but the actual number is likely higher.

Here are some other statistics: The U.S. and Japan are the only developed nations with capital punishment. The U.S. has 3,383 inmates on death row, while Japan has over 100. Americans are not in agreement on the death sentence penalty. The United States reinstated capital punishment in 1976, allowing each state to decide policy. Thirty-eight states have the death penalty; twelve do not. As of June, 2006 the total state-sanctioned executions since 1976 is 1,025; Texas leads the list with 365.

Oregon artist Julie Green's attention became riveted on the death penalty in 2000 when she was living in Norman, Oklahoma. Reading the newspaper one morning while she breakfasted on tea and toast she came upon the grizzly details, including the last meal, of an inmate's execution the night before. Green was disturbed to learn that this article was customary news seen as fit for the morning paper. She resolved to artistically depict the death penalty and the system surrounding it as a way of examining our culture. She has spent the past seven years researching and collecting the final meal requests of prisoners and illustrating them on an appropriate symbolic surface--a plate.

The Last Supper is a series of china-painted porcelain plates portraying images of the final meals of death row inmates. Artist Julie Green raises awareness of the number of executions in the U.S. (and particularly in Texas, where more than one-third of all U.S. executions take place), the social dilemma they present, the possibility of innocence and the question of racial bias, as well as regional differences. This work-in-progress contains 240 plates to date. Actual final meals depicted on the plates have been resourced by the artist from prison records. The Last Supper is an ongoing series that Green plans to continue as long as the death penalty continues.  

Julie Green

Julie Green's interest in last meals stems from an opposition to capital punishment as well as her life-long interest in food and how people eat. Green feels we can all relate to the condemned through the common denominator of food and that the subject of final meals of the incarcerated can serve as the catalyst for a debate on capital punishment. A final meal request represents an individual, and for Green, humanizes death row statistics.

In Fall, 2005 Green was awarded a Fellowship from the Center for the Humanities at Oregon State University to write an essay on the ritual of final meals for death row inmates.

Born in Japan, Green completed her MFA at the University of Kansas and has exhibited widely in the U.S., Japan and Europe. In 2000 she moved to Corvallis, Oregon where she is Associate Professor of Art at Oregon State University. Her work has toured in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.

At the invitation of the China Workersí Center for International Exchange in Beijing, supported by the Chinese Government, Green participated in a cultural exchange program for contemporary artists for the purpose of preserving and promoting world peace. 

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