FIRINGS

Medium: Collagraph Intaglio printmaking, with Chine Colle

Image size: 30” x 30" x 0"

Year completed: 2020

125’ x 125’

This body of work explores the continuous flow of people that Trump fired or forced out of office during his administration. This work is still important today. The series of over 50 prints has never been hung together.

The level of turnover was not normal and is more than double prior administrations. Highlighted is the chaos and apparent disdain with which the Trump administration treated our governing structure and roles. He continues to manipulate the stories we hear with falsehoods and smears, taking advantage of modern society’s struggle with information overload. His actions show a reluctance to truly serve the people, and a purposeful undermining of the integrity of our White House and country. Finally, there are clear authoritarian indicators behind these created disruptions and distractions, of lasting consequence to our country’s democracy, long after he leaves office.

Each print has: a scope aimed at the American flag, a person fired, words from a Trump tweet, rearranged. Removing people in the administration was an attempt to cripple our government and foreign relations.

Each print contains the shadow of the American flag with a scope focused directly on it. Most prints also contain partial and altered images of a person who has been fired or forced out of the Trump administration. A few prints contain multiple people or representations of groups. The text on each piece originates from Trump’s tweet from that day, but the words are rearranged by me to tell a new story. The entire contents of the tweet - words and punctuation - are used, but I’ve altered the order and the meaning.

Most days, there were many tweets from which to choose, so I picked just one, relevant to the firing or not. Sometimes he didn’t tweet anything relevant to the person’s departure, and sometimes I chose to select a tweet of a different topic.

Each piece of artwork is a 1/1 unique fine art print. The altered and distorted image of the person fired is applied using chine colle – a printmaking technique that integrates printed light-weight paper into the main print. Printmaking is the art form of creating an original image on a matrix, or “plate”, and then using ink to transfer the image to art paper.

Prints created for 2020. Printing the departure of individual people wasn’t describing the situation clearly enough. This set depicts Trump’s hands held in the signal of white supremacy. The heart, dissected from our country, falls to the ground in pieces, the hands lift up, as if to say “perfect”

This work is still important today. The whole series of prints has never been hung together, there are so many of them. Hanging each of the 50+ prints on the wall takes a lot of space but is very impactful. Or they can be displayed on a swinging blueprint rack hung on the wall, dimensions ~ 6’ x 3’.

Other- There are two printing plates for the whole series - one is of the American flag, shown fading in the background. The other is an abstract image of a gun scope - the scope is focused on the flag. The flag is under attack.