When I was younger than I am now, my oldest Aunt would always send my Mother copies of the latest New York Times' issues. They would read through the issues together, and then laugh and rant over the phone about the articles and the political problems of the world. When they were done, the issues would be placed in a straw basket in the living room, and then pass on to my curious little grubby hands. I liked flipping through the pages and looking at the funny cartoons, although I rarely understood their context. 

At the beginning of my Fall Semester in at PrattMWP, my Illustration professor had us pull words out of a hat, and create visual representations of what those words meant in different ways. My word was "A curse", and I spent two weeks making thumbnails about what a curse might be - a giant kraken dragging a ship into a swirling sea, a child cursing out his mom, ghosts lurking around a sunken shipwreck - but then it came to me, how about the curse of Donald Trump? The illustration would not only be a political commentary on what his presidency has done to the United States in just a mere four years, but also a fun exercise in something I was so infatuated with in my younger years. 

Through the use of similar tones and saturation levels as well as three dominant colors - red, blue and a bluish grey - I tried to push the fury seemingly behind Trump's image as well as his decision-making, as we have seen him time and time again, shout debaucheries at press, politicians, and random civilians. At the same time the use of red and blue is meant to portray the fake patriotism of the administration as it tries to ignore the disasters it has caused. These disasters are reflected in the natural disasters destroying the White House, and thus America, below Trump. Lightning bolts can also be seen shooting out of Trump's hands and into the landscape below, as if he's physically doing this on purpose, as the smug grin implies.