Matthew is an English artist, born in Nottingham, raised in a Dawn Christadephian family and is now bases in London. Collishaw’s work uses photography and video. He’s well known for his Bullet Hole which was taken in 1988, which is a closeup photo of what appears to be a bullet hole wound in the scalp of a person’s head, mounted on 15 light boxes. Collishaw took the original image from a pathology book that actually showed a wound caused by an ice pick . Mat got his debut when Bullet Hole was exhibited in Freeze, the group show organised by Damien Hirst in 1988 that launched the YBA (Young British Artists). It is now in the collection of the Museun of Old and New Art in Hobart, Australia. Mat has done many projects throughout his career but I one I am going to focus on is the still life exhibition named ‘Last Meal on Death Row’, which is pretty self explanatory.

This work of Collishaw’s is a depiction of Allen Lee Davis’ last meal, a lobster tail, fried potatoes, fried clams, fried shrimp, garlic bread and root beer. Davis was executed in Florida in 1999 as he was convicted of a brutal crime in 1982, he murdered Nancy Weller and her two young daughter, Kristina,nine ans Katherine, five, in Jacksonville, Florida. Karma caught up to him when the electric chair failed to deliver a clean death and witnesses heard him scream and saw him bleed. That was the last time the electric chair was used in the state of Florida and now only the lethal injection is allowed. The meal has been placed in a banquet looking way, like the last supper that Jesus held before he resurrected this emphasises the inevitable death of Davis. As well as that it is mutely lit and under-exposed as if there is no light left to give and there won’t be in hell. There is plenty of depth in the shadowing, this could represent the inner feelings of guilt, shame, regret or maybe even happiness going through the heads of the criminal on death row. His still-life resembles foodstuff painted by some Dutch artist in the age of the Vermeer. He takes a 1700s approach and matches it was a modern concept of the last meal but at the same time it goes with old times as the death penalty is seen by the large majority as an outdated punishment. The plate and the table look as if they are from a different century even the meal itself, I feel the underlining message could be that the death penalty should be abolished.