Acting as a deeply poignant and provocative counterblast to TV cookery shows, colour supplement recipes and Instagram plate pics, Mat Collishaw: Last Meal on Death Row, Texas is an unsettling exhibition that sees ordinary, somewhat banal choices become charged with dark moral and psychological questions.
The exhibition is composed of thirteen hyper-realistic paintings and photographs depicting the final meals requested by named inmates awaiting their imminent executions in the United States of America.
The work powerfully creates a meeting point between documentary impulse and painterly tradition, transforming mundane comfort food into objects of profound contemplative weight.
The subjects are deceptively ordinary – fried chicken, hamburgers, pecan pie, sweet tea – but rendered with the lush attention to surface and light associated with Dutch Golden Age still life painting from the 17th century. Collishaw’s deliberate art historical framing of the contemporary subject matter is central to the exhibition’s emotional intensity.
Collishaw draws upon the vanitas tradition – in which abundant food and fine objects served as memento mori reminders of mortality – and creates a brutal contemporary echo. Where 17th-century painters used rotting fruit to suggest life’s transience, Collishaw uses a dish of ripe fruit, including a peach, orange and apples, as ordered by Cornelius Gross hours before his death.
One of the exhibition’s most famous pieces is the choice of Jonathan Nobles, who fasted and requested only a communion wafer and wine.
In all thirteen pictures, Collishaw refuses to sensationalise. Or contextualise. There are no victims, no perpetrators, no crime scene imagery. Only food, rendered with extraordinary detail and artistic tenderness. With each image, the viewer is simply left knowing what each meal represents: a final act of agency, perhaps the last moment of simple pleasure available to someone about to be put to death for committing murder. Each meal is imbued with the Old Testament principle of retribution.
The exhibition raises uncomfortable questions about capital punishment, the ritualised nature of execution, and what it means to grant a condemned man his choice of a final meal. Last Meal on Death Row, Texas is at once a meditation on mortality, a critique of the American penal system, and a deeply humanising act.
Matt Collishaw says
“My Last Meal on Death Row series examines the strange collision between the ordinary and the irreversible. These are the final meals requested by prisoners before execution: familiar, often humble objects of comfort, transformed by the knowledge of what follows. A cheeseburger becomes almost sacred in appearance because of how it is composed, lit and framed. Contemporary fast food takes on the solemnity of 17th-century Dutch Vanitas painting. What might otherwise seem banal is charged with mortality, ritual and judgment. The meal becomes a still life in the most literal sense: a final arrangement before extinction.”
Liz Gilmore, CEO of The Sherborne says:
“The Sherborne is the new home to the arts in the South West. We aim to inspire curiosity by offering a vibrant cultural programme that is locally and nationally significant. Collishaw’s beautiful, poignant works remind us of the role of art and its ability to shock, surprise and delight in equal measure, and ultimately, in understanding what it is to be human. We are thrilled to put them on show in our Red and Green Georgian rooms, in juxtaposition with wider themes of storytelling and mythmaking.”
Mat Collishaw: Last Meal on Death Row, Texas, 3rd June – 6th September 2026, The Sherborne
Opening times: Open daily, 10AM – 5PM. Free admission
This exhibition coincides with a new season of exhibitions and displays at The Sherborne, titled Of Myths and Murals. This includes a new mural called The Joy of the Frog by Sir Quentin Blake marking the 300th anniversary of James Thornhill’s vivid mural depicting the epic Calydonian Boar Hunt from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and The Baron’s Metamorphoses: Myths for a Failing Admiralty of 18 new works by The Baron Gilvan located in a variety of surprising places throughout The Sherborne.
The Sherborne is a charitable, cultural hub at the heart of the South West, dedicated to connecting people with the arts and creativity. Home to the iconic Sir James Thornhill mural, it presents a dynamic programme of exhibitions, workshops, talks, and community events. Visitors can enjoy the experience fully with the restaurant, a curated shop, and welcoming spaces that reflect The Sherborne’s mission: To be a space to look, make, think, experience, and talk about the most vital and inspiring art and culture (human and the natural world), both past and present; a place to connect with creativity, art, history, nature and with each other. Its vision is to be a cultural destination where heritage, creativity, and community come together, offering something for everyone—whether discovering original artworks, enjoying a meal, or taking part in creative activities.
Mat Collishaw (b. 1966) is a key figure in the important generation of British artists who emerged from Goldsmiths’ College in the late 1980s. He participated in Freeze (1988) and since his first solo exhibition in 1990 has exhibited widely internationally. More here www.matcollishaw.com
