The Last Supper

This is one of Damien Hirst's series, The Last Supper. Appropriately there are thirteen images in the series. Each screenprint is based on pharmaceutical packaging, apparently chosen for its design, rather than the drugs it would normally contain. This particular print is based on the packaging for a popular asthma medication. All thirteen images from The Last Supper can be found here, along with detailed descriptions of which drug packaging they refer to. I don't know what Hirst had in mind when he made these works. There is, of course, the obvious religious reference in the title and the decision to make thirteen images. Beyond that, they set me thinking about how often medication, rather than food, becomes the 'last supper' of the terminally ill patient. These images are familiar - packaging we see every day and common foods - but they are made strange by the unlikely conjunction of the two.