U.K.-based artist Conor Collins painted an image of President Donald Trump using his problematic language as the foundation for the portrait. The painting itself is set upon a wall of white-washed dollars.
According to Collins, the work is made up of “racist, sexist, ignorant and bigoted things” said by the president during his time in office and while he ran his campaign. He created the portrait to draw attention to the effect Trump's rhetoric has had on the public, and says that the project has also provided him with a way to cope with post-election stress.
”I resisted making this painting for a as long as I could,” Collins told The Huffington Post. “However, every time I turned on the TV, I saw Trump. Every time I checked my Twitter, it was Trump. If I was on the bus, I would hear a conversation about Trump. Even if there was a single moment of peace, of calm, of not hearing him…you knew at any second the conversation would go back to him. So I had a choice…either go against the tide or go with it but faster. I realized I was blinkering myself by not painting him. Because he has spread everywhere, like a rash.”
Collins, an openly gay artist, has created similar works in the past, including a separate portrait of Trump that he made during the campaign. He also completed projects using this same style of portraiture when Caitlyn Jenner received hundreds of death threats after coming out as transgender and another out of the homophobic tweets directed at Olympic diver Tom Daley in 2014.
“Words matter. Words transform people,” Collins continued. “ I don’t think about what makes my paintings similar or different to each other. I leave that to the experts.”
