Mat Collishaw’s body of work explores suppressed desire, seduction and dark pleasure. With this exclusive new-media artwork, The End of Innocence, the artist presents a ghostly image that has been digitally manipulated. Upon a closer look, it oscillates between two appropriated portraits of Pope Innocent X—one painted by the Irish twentieth century artist Francis Bacon, and the other by the Spanish seventeenth century artist Diego Velázquez.

The work was first created in 2009, where it was projected on a monumental scale. Here, it continually dissolves and reforms to create a smaller-scale striated image that is reminiscent of digital rain.