John Muafangejo – The Last Supper

Muafangejo relocates the biblical meal into an African visual and cultural setting rather than copying a European Renaissance model. This makes the Christian story part of the lived world he knew in Namibia and southern Africa.

Muafangejo often integrated hand-cut inscriptions directly into his linocuts to identify events, explain their meaning, or add a personal voice. In The Last Supper, text and image therefore operate together rather than as a separate caption.

Leonardo stages the scene in a Renaissance refectory using modeled bodies and linear perspective. Muafangejo instead uses stark black-and-white carving, flattened figures, African clothing, and written language.

The work is a linocut, printed from a carved sheet of linoleum. Muafangejo became known for using this inexpensive, direct medium to combine biblical subjects, autobiography, history, and commentary.