Controversial artist James Cauty has unleashed an unholy trinity of images just in time for Easter.

The pictures, which have a price-tag of £6,666 each, are being exhibited as part of the Brighton Fringe.

Cauty, a political activist who is no stranger to controversy, has doctored three Old Masters in an attempt to give them new meaning.

The Virgin Mary is shown speaking on a mobile phone. The cross at Calgary where Jesus was crucified has been converted into a radio mast.

Two of the classical images have been given a new twist with the addition of Nokia and Vodafone logos.

The exhibition, called Pop, is at the Argus Lofts in North Laine from April 24.

Cauty, the one-time frontman of dance group The KLF, is on a DJing tour in Japan as controversy over the images grows at home.

He said: "People are bombarded with messages and advertising all the time and I thought this was a way of interpreting some of the old masters in that context.

"The messages had a meaning when they were originally painted and I've tried to translate that into the 21st Century. Some people might find the images blasphemous.

"Whatever people make of them is entirely up to them."

A spokesman for the Diocese of Chichester said people could be confused by the images.

He said: "Such contemporary amendment to traditional religious imagery is certainly imaginative but may well prove confusing to Christians if there is supposed to be a particular message attached.

"I am sure the early Church would have made very good use of mobile phones in spreading the word had they been around then. Editing pictures in this way is nothing new, and, in fact, the Churches' Advertising Network, which produces national advertising for all the denominations has done much the same thing to try to get a message across on a number of occasions."

Cauty's previous efforts have included a picture of George Bush shaking hands with Tony Blair and setting him alight and a postage stamp of the Queen wearing a gas mask.

Many of the Queen pictures had to be destroyed after the Royal Mail said they breached copyright.

Cauty's chilling image of a plane crashing into the Houses of Parliament on Guy Fawkes' night, under the caption 5-11, created the biggest stir.

Friends of Robert Eaton from Brighton, who died in the Twin Towers, called the images "cheap and highly insensitive" and said they should be "treated with the contempt they deserve".

In 1994, Cauty burned £1 million in cash.

The artist has stated his ambition was to become "a multi-national global propaganda machine".