Last Supper (Red Table)

48" x 72"
Oil
1998

Here we have the Magic Dozen, sitting around the table, a red one for a change, like some important politicians. Really, nobody knows how this supper proceeded, so we feel free to interpret it. If ever this supper took place, or not, that's not the issue. We have a symbolic memory of it. We were told that it was so. But, wait a minute...Who told us? We know that around those times, times of Roman rule, Roman laws, there were a multitude of fanatical sects, religious groups, dissidents, prophets, scribes - very challenging ones and competitive. So, we shall make an effort to visualize Our Last Supper.

Here we have 12 characters and each one has its own problem. I don't feel that they were 12 nice boys. They were mature people, and some had deep psychological problems. They couldn't live "normal" life; they had to live in dissent. It doesn't matter which one. I pictured various characters, few fervent believers, some are passive - just happened to be there by some freak of events. We just feel that cross-cut of humanity is close enough to reality.

One boy feels himself General, and he has the best chair with some strange bird on the top of it. He feels powerful, thus he is feeding some dragon-dog kind of creature. There is always someone worrying about money; he is safe in this world. Down, opposite the Teacher, one guy is already dressed up. Another, just looking around and as we know, there are always poor ones...I put 2 of them. One could be a woman ... who knows?

One feels the air is charged with a lot of passions, doubts, questions, pride, righteousness - only the Teacher beyond all that. He is the only one who has eternal chalice. He is beyond emotions, time, life. In the center I put a loaf of bread...we see it is stabbed with a knife, and blood is in the tray. Bread represents our life. Regardless how good any ideology, promises, truth and lies...it always kills natural life...pristine, original, dark stone in our soul, which is our natural pulse, where unknowable impulses originate; and that is what makes us alive. The crowd behind the tree, well, is a crowd. And there also, peace, in the form of a small house with an orange tree. And always there is learned snake around, telling us what we don't know.