Jeni Spota says her intimate and intricate paintings are as much about spirituality as they are about the paintings of the Italian Renaissance to which they often refer. In the present work – included in the Saatchi Gallery’s 2016 exhibition Champagne Life – Spota applies layer upon layer of thick pigment to build up a crowded crucifixion scene; individual onlookers can be seen gazing upon the central figure of Christ on the cross, while above, in the heavens, the Virgin Mary and angelic hosts look down on the chaotic scene below. Spota lives and works in New York, and her paintings have been included in recent exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York.