Andrew Fay
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The Great Western Altarpiece

“Look up. Look waaaay up,” to quote the Friendly Giant. Imagine this work not as a smallish image on your screen, but a towering 12-foot, cathedral-sized opus. Large enough that there are few places it can be displayed as intended. 

Created from 2017 to 2021, and inspired by the grandeur and drama of Baroque masterpieces, Andrew Fay started with one painting that evolved into 12, and a complex narrative that revisits the theme of “The Last Judgement”.

Classical religious iconography is reinterpreted with whimsical or absurd imagery. Muscular figures stand in for Renaissance depictions of saints and angels, now in carnival scenes, with skeletons and flying machines. 

What’s happening here? Is it salvation or spectacle? It can be hard to tell in a world saturated with media and performance. 

It’s the last judgement, using symbols of contemporary life and entertainment, and asking: how do we perceive justice, penance, and transcendence in a modern context? This tableau encourages viewers to veer from reverence to critique, capturing the ambiguity of our cultural moment.

Here we’re also seeing details of the twelve individual canvases making up the work, each measuring 36” x 24”.

A nude figure escorted by an angel, is punched off a ledge and refuses a parachute, evoking both divine intervention and slapstick theatricality. 

This panel, recalling baptism, shows a boy perched above a tank with a fish below—his pensive stare invites reflection amid the absurdity.