DRAIN 2017-2023
DRAIN is a collection of drawings that camouflage Trump’s calumny with the glitz of his notorious ersatz aesthetic. The luxurious trappings of the former president’s personal and business properties are depicted as protecting and comforting creatures of the swamp, exposing the emptiness of his campaign promise “to drain the swamp in Washington” with ethics reforms “to make our government honest once again." The devil is in the details of the decor, and the corruption that perpetuates it, ensuring the persistence of vice and venality. Some of the swamp creatures play dead or appear as inflatable toys, to be tolerated, even enjoyed and played with. Like his charge to drain the swamp, they were never meant to be taken seriously.
Swamp Accommodations VI featured in Hyperallergic's Drawing in a Time of Fear & Lies, August 5, 2017.
Some of these works are to be included in the forthcoming book Interrogating the Visual Culture of Trumpism, edited by Natalie E. Phillips and Grant Hamming and published by Routledge.
DRAIN: In Advance of Flag Day, 2023