Julie Green, Burger, Fries and Ice Cream at Dairy Queen, 2021, Acrylic, buttons, 24K gold, fabric, ... [+] feather and glow-in-the-dark paint on Tyvek, 38 x 49.25 inches

For 20 years, Julie Green devoted her art practice to recording the humble last meals of prison inmates on death row. Contrary to popular mythology, last meals are not decadent smorgasbords of exotic delicacies.

Most states which continue enacting the death penalty restrict choices to what’s available in the prison kitchen or easily acquired on a measly budget. In Oklahoma, it’s $15, down from $20. California, $50. Texas is the only state which doesn’t provide a last meal choice. Texas also executes by far the most people of any state in America.

Green’s last meal artworks–painted images of the meals in cobalt blue on white ceramic plates, noting the date of the execution and the state where it occurred–came to be known as The Last Supper series. It would eventually grow to 1,000 examples, the artist choosing that round number as a stopping point after receiving a diagnosis of ovarian cancer. She had wanted to continue the series until capital punishment was outlawed in the United States, but that is not imminent and the cancer took her life at age 60 on October 12, 2021.

In September, she made what would be her last plate, depicting a glass bottle of Coca-Cola on a small oval dish, a modest request from a prisoner executed in Texas in 1997.

Julie Green met Kristine Bunch at an exhibition for The Last Supper in 2015. Bunch spent 17-years in prison before being exonerated for murder and arson in connection with the death of her 3-year-old son. Conversation of last meals for death row inmates turned to first meals upon release after wrongful conviction.

Bunch dined on scallops, cheese grits, hummus, vegetables and champagne upon regaining her freedom. Green found inspiration for a new series of work highlighting the cruelties of America’s carceral system.

For the past three years, Green had been asking wrongfully convicted persons about their “first meals” upon release from prison, painting their responses for her series by the same name. Through January 22, 2022, 13 of the 30 paintings Green had completed by the time of her death are on view in “At Home with Family,” an exhibition at Elizabeth Houston Gallery in New York.

Julie Green, Whopper, Fries and Then, 2020 Acrylic, palladium leaf, silk, cotton, paper and ... [+] glow-in-the-dark paint on Tyvek.

Oranges, burgers and fries, milk shakes, rainbow trout, pizza, shrimp and grits, corned beef, consumed alone or with family, at home or in diners, appear in acrylic and glow-in-the-dark paint in First Meal, humanizing, personalizing the shocking statistics around wrongful convictions in the U.S.

Partnering with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University and The Innocence Project, Green’s focus extends beyond the individual meals (and individuals) she depicts to the sheer number of wrongfully imprisoned in this country and the reason for their unjust incarceration. In 2020, the National Registry of Exonerations reported that police or prosecutor misconduct had led to convictions in more than half of the 2,400 exonerations documented nationwide over the last three decades.

Green’s First Meal’s initially appear to be patchwork flags stitched together with various fabrics, 24k gold, found samplers, turmeric-dyed silk, and more, all sewn onto Tyvek, the hardy synthetic material used to wrap buildings under construction.

“Julie had a long history of using unconventional materials for her artwork,” Elizabeth Houston, Gallery Director and Curator of “At Home With Family” told Forbes.com. “Tyvek was attractive to her because it has properties of both paper and fabric, takes acrylic very well, and is archival and durable.”

Inspired by Flow Blue, a type of transferware that originated in Staffordshire, England in the early 19th century, Green’s plates pair the pastoral scenes of their progenitors with the realities and symbols of food eaten by newly freed prisoners.

Where did the artist’s unending fascination with Flow Blue plates come from?

“Julie was born in Japan and retained a lifelong interest in how Asian materials and techniques influenced Western art,” Houston explains. “She was also deeply knowledgeable about and interested in domestic and craft objects and how they intersect with so-called fine art, incorporating not just dinnerware, but also fabrics, notions and paper into many of her works.”

Inscribed around each plate in First Meal are intimate details about each person: “17 years on death row, 1st meal on the outside, then threw up,” “Thank God I’m home,” sign language, “There’s no fast food in prison,” restaurant logos, even the one-page questionnaire Green distributed to participants asking who they ate with, what they ordered and why.

Julie Green, Huwe Burton Said Truth Freed Me, Music Kept Me Sane While I Waited, 2019, Acrylic and ... [+] glow-in-the-dark paint on sewn together Tyvek, 40 × 47.3 inches.

Houston found one story from the series particularly touching, the inspiration for the piece, Huwe Burton Said Truth Freed Me, Music Kept Me Sane While I Waited.

“Huwe Burton describes a first meal of squash lasagna at Red Rooster in Harlem, New York. The title is Burton's statement to Green: ‘Truth freed me, music kept me sane while I waited,’” Houston said. “Burton was just 16-years-old when, in 1991, police coerced a confession for the murder of his own mother. He was released on parole in 2009, but his wrongful conviction was not vacated until 2019.”

Examples like this demonstrate how the seemingly more hopeful nature of First Meal artworks can, in fact, be more heartbreaking than the stories shared in The Last Supper. Years, in some cases decades, stolen from innocent people, the prime of their lives spent locked away by a criminal justice system still rife with prejudice and inequity. Green routinely remarked that the stories on which the First Meal paintings are based were as or more harrowing and deeply sad as the last meal requests in The Last Supper.

Beyond Elizabeth Houston Gallery, 800 of the 1,000 works Green completed in The Last Supper are now on display through January 23, 2022 at the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington state. Upcoming exhibitions of First Meal include “Thank God, I’m Home” at The NJCU Harold Lemmerman Gallery, Jersey City, New Jersey from February 1–March 25, 2022 and a group exhibition of Hallie Ford Fellows, The Ford Family Foundation at Oregon Contemporary in early 2022.

Elizabeth Houston Gallery’s Lower Manhattan location at 190 Orchard Street sits one mile from the Museum of Chinese in America, one of numerous New York cultural attractions visitors can explore digitally through the Bloomberg Connects app. The New York Public Library, the Central Park Conservancy, El Museu del Barrio, the Guggenheim, the Met, MoMA PS1, the New York Botanical Garden, New-York Historical Society and more have profiles allowing guests to maximize their experiences before and during visits by accessing audio, image and video content, as well as by purchasing tickets and viewing maps. Download for free on the App Store or Google Play.

Artsy travelers searching for unexpected delights across the city should immediately secure a copy of the indispensable “Art Hiding in New York,” a clever book which will open New York’s art treasures to even locals.

'The Girl Puzzle' Nellie Bly Monument by Amanda Matthews. Roosevelt Island New York.

Unveiled on December 10, 2021, The Girl Puzzle monument honoring Nellie Bly on the northern tip of Roosevelt Island shares the remarkable story of the pioneering investigative journalist–America’s first for her expose “Ten Days in a Madhouse”–suffragist and rights advocate.

The Girl Puzzle by Amanda Matthews, so named for Bly’s first published headline in 1885, a response to bigotry, honors Bly by presenting, on a monumental scale, faces of many women who have endured hardship, but are stronger for it. The monument gives visibility to Asian, Black, Young, Old, Immigrant, and Queer women. Their stories and lives are forever commemorated alongside Nellie Bly, whose face is cast in silver bronze, while the other four faces are cast in bronze.

For accommodations, the Arlo Midtown with its soaring, light-filled atrium lobby puts guests directly in the mix between Times Square and Hudson Yards. Enjoy spectacular panoramic views from 26 stories in the sky at The Rooftop at Nearly Ninth. When the weather’s not cooperating for outdoor enjoyment, visit Arlo Midtown’s Terrace at Nearly Ninth, an unconventional social space surrounded on three sides by glass and topped with a greenhouse-style ceiling, lush plants and trees reminiscent of a perfectly planned terrarium.