NOT
​​Click on each image for enlargement and description. 

PhICA's Onloaded 5 Container Gallery - Open door view

1300 NOTS - An Unlucky Meditation

1300 NOTS - Close-up

SHEEP SHANK MAN-O-WAR (shortens the length of our rope) Headline: Motormouth Trump warns 'rocket man' Kim

SLIPPERY GANG-OF-8 LOOP (supposed to make an adjustable opening) Headline: Secrecy Surrounding Senate Health Bill Raises Alarms in Both Parties

HALF-HEARTED HITCH (basic self-serving over(under)-hand knot. Headline: Citing Recusal, Trump Says He Wouldn’t Have Hired Sessions

MONKEY-SEE-MONKEY-DO FIST KNOT (ball-shaped knot used for decoration with no function) Headline: Reports of Bias-Based Attacks Tick Upward After Election

DOUBTFUL DOUBLE FISHERMAN (could bring two ends together) Headline: Health Care Overhaul Collapses as Two Republican Senators Defect

OVAL OFFICE SLIP NOOSE (self-tightening rope when weight an momentum are applied) Headline: President Trump Gave Classified Information on ISIS to Russia in an Oval Office Meeting, Breaking a Deal With an Ally, Officials Said

ISOLATIONIST LOOP (isolates an unwanted section of our rope) Headline: Trump Orders Mexican Border Wall to Be Built and Plans to Block Syrian Refugees

FEEL LIKE HEAVING LINE KNOT (adds weight and gravity to the end of our rope) Headline: President Trump Again Blamed Both Sides for the Charlottesville Violence and Asked if George Washington Statues Were Next to Come Down

ICICLES-ARE-MELTING HITCH (desperately holds onto diminishing objects) Headline: Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement

V.P. BACKUP KNOT (provides security to the primary knot) Headline: Trump Tells Pence to Leave N.F.L. Game as Players Kneel During Anthem

UNDOCUMENTED CONSTRICTOR KNOT (rounds up loose items) Headline: Trump Moves to End DACA and Calls on Congress to Act

TWITTER DOUBLE DOWN LOOP (easily tied, difficult to undo) Headline: What’s a ‘Covfefe’? Trump Tweet Unites a Bewildered Nation

By most accounts, it seems that the Donald Trump management style is to divide, disrupt and create an atmosphere of chaos so as to keep all who serve under him, alert, suspicious, competitive – and distracted from his own lack of real ability to govern. This effect has taken ahold, not only of his immediate staff, but is threatening to permeate the culture of US all. The trouble is, he is in office to serve US, not visa versa.
 
The work in this exhibition is my personal attempt to translate this turmoil that I, and many in this country feel. We’ve been stripped, twisted, wound up tight, and tied into knots over what we are hearing and experiencing on a daily basis with this White House.
 
Using Trump campaign t-shirts that have been cut into strips, those long pieces were tightly twisted to create rope, and then tied into a series of knots. Each knot carriers a title and description based on its real-life name and purpose – but has been reinterpreted to reference the barrage of stunning headlines emanating from the Trump administrations’ antics and careless behavior.
 
The show is anchored by a knotted net, that is also made from Trump t-shirt ropes, titled “1300 NOTS - An Unlucky Meditation”. (the number of knotted connections making up this net) This transparent netting forms the image of the American flag.
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2017

Exhibited in Onloaded 5 Container Galleries - by Phoenix Institute of Contemporary Art
Included in Phoenix New Times - Best Trump Art in 2017.