COVFEFE
Mixed media. Acrylic, spray paint, collage.
Original New Yorker Magazine front covers.
Main artwork 80cm x 80cm x 4cm.
This artwork was produced as a request to draw focus to a particularly troubled era in US, and global history. The spectre of Donald Trump as US President symbolises an apogee - where social, political and sexual divisions in society were endorsed and inflamed by key individuals, who exploited their positions of power to manipulate both the media and the proletariat into embellishing the myth.
This artwork is a diptych, using original New Yorker Magazine front covers to illustrate Division in a very literal sense - the piece being composed of two separate parts.
Within this maelstrom of fraudulency and misrepresentation, are featured the major players in a landscape of unrest - Donald Trump, Hilary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, US gun laws, Russian interference in the US election, the proposed wall between Mexico and the US, gender-based discrimination and exploitation within the film industry.
In memory of Tazeen Ahmad.
All artwork, text and images © James Straffon 2024.