This series of eight collages on paper was created as a study on The Last Judgment, painted by Hans Memling between 1467 and 1471. Specifically, Alex Urso focused his attention on the figures of the damned, represented in the original painting on its right-hand panel. From a colored monograph dedicated to this masterpiece, Urso cut out pictures of the sinners and juxtaposed them with shapes of flowers and plants taken from an illustrated encyclopedia about the natural world. The combination of these elements results in creating a contrast between the harmony and the balance of nature, and the suffering bodies of the damned.

This series of dioramas appears like a “stations of the cross”. However, instead of retracing the path of Jesus Christ on the day of his death, the works recalls one of the masterpieces of western art: the well-known Last Judgment triptych, painted by Hans Memling between 1467 and 1471. Individually, each of these dioramas presents an image on the background: it depicts an episode of Memling’s work that Urso has selected from a colored monograph dedicated to this painting.

Altogether, the series includes nine wooden hand-made boxes. Observing the individual episodes, and stopping in front of each “station”, the viewer has the impression of retracing the whole painting: as in the work of Memling, the first boxes represent the souls in heaven, followed by those in purgatory, ending with the suffering bodies of the damned dragged to hell.