The Seven Deadly Sins of Modern Times (1993) is an acrylic painting on a wooden table by the contemporary Australian artist Susan Dorothea White

Susan Dorothea White

Susan Dorothea White , also called Sue White and Susan White, is an Australian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. She is a narrative artist and her work concerns the natural world and human situation, increasingly incorporating satire and irony to convey her concern for human rights and equality...

. Inspired by the composition and design of The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things

The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things is a painting attributed to Hieronymus Bosch, completed around 1500 or later. The painting is oil on wood panels...

by Hieronymus Bosch, White has instead depicted the inverse virtues taken to extremes—for example, gluttony

Gluttony

Gluttony, derived from the Latin gluttire meaning to gulp down or swallow, means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food, drink, intoxicants or wealth items to the point of extravagance or waste...

 is supplanted by "dieting

Dieting

Dieting is the practice of eating food in a regulated fashion to achieve or maintain a controlled weight. In most cases dieting is used in combination with physical exercise to lose weight in those who are overweight or obese. Some athletes, however, follow a diet to gain weight...

", and "sucking up" stands in for envy

Envy

Envy is best defined as a resentful emotion that "occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it."...

. In the depiction of each of these deadly sins

Deadly Sins

Deadly Sins is the seventh album by heavy metal band Seven Witches.-Track listing:All tracks by Jack Frost & Alan Tecchio except were noted# "Deadly Sins" – 3:55# "Science" – 4:16# "Commence" – 4:18# "Worship" – 3:47# "Knowledge" – 3:24...

 is an animal or plant which has been introduced

Introduced species

An introduced species — or neozoon, alien, exotic, non-indigenous, or non-native species, or simply an introduction, is a species living outside its indigenous or native distributional range, and has arrived in an ecosystem or plant community by human activity, either deliberate or accidental...

 to Australia to ill effect, as the cockroach

Australian cockroach

The Australian cockroach is a large species of cockroach, winged, and growing to a length of . It is brown in colour. It is very similar in appearance to the American cockroach and may be mistaken for it easily...

 represents squandering and a feral water buffalo demonstrates indifference

Indifference

Indifference may refer to:* Indifference or apathy, a psychological attitude* "Indifference" , an episode of Law & Order* Indifference curve, in microeconomic theory, a graph describing consumer preferences...

. Instead of the eye of God which Bosch placed in the center of his design, White has incorporated an enlargement of the iris

Iris (anatomy)

The iris is a thin, circular structure in the eye, responsible for controlling the diameter and size of the pupils and thus the amount of light reaching the retina. "Eye color" is the color of the iris, which can be green, blue, or brown. In some cases it can be hazel , grey, violet, or even pink...

 of her pet cat, which represents Gaia

Gaia (mythology)

Gaia was the primordial Earth-goddess in ancient Greek religion. Gaia was the great mother of all: the heavenly gods and Titans were descended from her union with Uranus , the sea-gods from her union with Pontus , the Giants from her mating with Tartarus and mortal creatures were sprung or born...

, with the rubric "The Eye of Gaia Sees All". The artist has also produced a woodcut of the same title and similar composition and another large acrylic painting on a wooden table The Seven Deadly Isms - the latter has been described as a "Boschian extravaganza ... depicting such contemporary obsessions as Materialism and Workaholism in intricate figurative tableaux".