By Cecilia Bahnson Julie Green is an artist, activist, and professor at Oregon State University here in Corvallis. She was born in Yokosuka, Japan and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts as well as her Masters of Fine Arts from The University of Kansas. Green’s primary medium is traditional paint and one of her most influential works is an ongoing project known as The Last Supper, which combines historical and classical painting techniques with her passion and criticism of capital punishment in the United States. In The Last Supper, Julie Green paints the final meals of death row inmates onto vintage ceramic plates, using the same blue mineral paint for each depiction.
The Last Supper was set in motion when Green was teaching in Texas. She stumbled upon a section of the morning paper which listed the final meal requests of Texan death row inmates. Since that time, Green has worked hard to educate herself and others on the issue of capital punishment, and she has added 950 painted plates to her collection-- around 50 per year. “A final meal request humanizes death row for me,” she says. With each final meal that she paints, Green also includes the date of the execution, the written meal request, and the state. She does not include the inmates’ names. Through her research and work around this topic, Julie Green also learned about what sorts of last meals are available. Many states have very limited options because there are only so many things available in the prison kitchens. Some states have restrictions on last meals for other reasons as well, for example in Texas-- a state with a huge abundance of cattle ranches-- steak is not allowed. “If you ordered steak, you got ground beef,” says Green. Green also found that among the more popular requests for comfort foods like hamburgers, fries, enchiladas, potatoes, and pizza, there were also requests for the things inmates never had the chance to try. Sugar-free black walnut ice cream, for example, or fried sac-a-lait fish with crawfish étouffée. One man asked for “justice, equality, world peace,” and another for “God’s Word.” Every choice is personal and tells a snippet of a story. Julie Green shares those stories through her art. Since Green began working on The Last Supper, the death penalty has become significantly less popular and less frequently imposed. She plans to continue until the death penalty is totally abolished, or until she has completed 1,000 plates. Whichever comes first. As of 2021, 23 states have abolished the death penalty, including Washington D.C.. Green has received plenty of criticism from the public about this project. Debates about the ethics capital punishment run fierce in this country, and Julie Green is persistently opposed to any death sentence. She’s also been accused of trying to capitalize on the death penalty, although she has stated that the project is “strictly not for profit.” David Huff, the executive director of The Arts Center, says of death row inmates and Julie Green’s work: “They may have done really bad things. But regardless of what you think about it [the death penalty], you have to accept that these are people...actual people with likes and dislikes.” From a professional point of view, Julie Green has had a very successful career as an artist. Her artwork and stories have been featured in The New York Times, PBS, Rolling Stone and Ceramics Monthly, as well as several other media outlets and exhibitions both within the United States and internationally. Nowadays Green works as a professor in the art department at OSU but devotes much of her time to her own studio, continuing her work on The Last Supper or working on her own narrative paintings. Other projects of hers include a series of large, rather charming narrative paintings called Fashion Plate, as well as a project called My New Blue Friends which explores human consumption and a unique airbrushing technique that incorporates egg tempura. My New Blue Friends draws inspiration from traditional calligraphy, the color blue, and the movement of the ocean. Julie Green lives with her husband and fellow artist Clay Lohmann, as well as their one-eyed cat. Sources: Artsy. “In Julie Green's Portland Exhibition, the Blues Are Insistent.” Artsy, 13 Dec. 2015, www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-in-julie-green-s-portland-exhibition-the-blues-are-insistent Green, Julie. Julie Green, 23 Apr. 2021, https://greenjulie.com/ Johnson, Kirk. “Dish by Dish, Art of Last Meals.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 25 Jan. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/arts/design/the-last-supper-by-julie-green-at-arts-center-in-oregon.html “JULIE GREEN.” UPFOR, https://upforgallery.com/julie-green “Julie Green.” College of Liberal Arts, 13 Apr. 2020, https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/julie-green “Julie Green's ‘The Last Supper ‘Depicts the Final Meals of Death Row Inmates.” Julie Green's "The Last Supper "Depicts the Final Meals of Death Row Inmates | Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, 12 June 2021, https://jsma.uoregon.edu/julie-green%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9C-last-supper-%E2%80%9Cdepicts-final-meals-death-row-inmates “My New Blue Friends.” UPFOR, https://upforgallery.com/my-new-blue-friends Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/shallow-focus-photography-of-paintbrush-102127/
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