Mat Collishaw's Death Row Final Meal Paintings at The Sherborne

Mat Collishaw's exhibition 'Last Meal on Death Row, Texas' at The Sherborne presents thirteen hyper-realistic paintings and photographs of final meals requested by named inmates before execution in the United States. The works blend documentary impulse with Dutch Golden Age still life tradition, transforming comfort foods like fried chicken, hamburgers, pecan pie, and sweet tea into vanitas-style meditations on mortality. Collishaw draws on the 17th-century vanitas tradition, using a dish of ripe fruit ordered by Cornelius Gross as a memento mori. One notable piece depicts Jonathan Nobles' request for only a communion wafer and wine. The exhibition avoids sensationalism, showing no victims or crime scenes—only food rendered with extraordinary detail. It raises questions about capital punishment, ritualized execution, and the condemned's final act of agency. The show runs from 3rd June to 6th September 2026, with free admission. It coincides with The Sherborne's season 'Of Myths and Murals,' featuring a new mural by Sir Quentin Blake and works by The Baron Gilvan. Collishaw, a key figure from the Freeze generation, emerged from Goldsmiths' College in the late 1980s.