Original Sin – Last Supper

Drawing on classical still-life references, the two large-scale paintings suggest familiar domestic scenes. In Original Sin green apples are piled high in a white bowl. A single red apple lies on the ground, split open, symbolising both female genitalia and the fallen woman of the Garden of Eden. The William Morris wallpaper in the background features pomegranates – a classical reference to female fecundity and women’s reproductive organs. Meanwhile, a cascading green fabric bears a pattern of Trouton’s own creation. The floral design features plants from a recipe by Trota of Salerno that was intended to bring about abortion. Trota was a female physician in 12th-century Italy and the writer of the most influential medieval text on women’s medicine in Europe.

The themes continue in Last Supper, a still life in which the apparently commonplace objects allude not to wealth or status but to women’s struggle for bodily autonomy. The green wallpaper features the same plants from Trota’s recipe, while the William Morris pattern now appears in the fabric that is on the table. On the wall hangs a St Brigid Cross, an allusion to the Irish saint who performed many miracles, including an abortion for a young woman who had broken her vow of chastity. This act, performed in the year 650, is considered by many to be Ireland’s first abortion.

Trouton is a Northern Irish artist who lives and works in Belfast. The addition of Original Sin – Last Supper to the collection at Ulster Museum marks an important step in addressing the historic gender imbalance in the holdings, as well as complementing other recent acquisitions of 20th- and 21st-century Irish and international paintings.