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The 2016 election generated more stress and anxiety than I could possibly imagine. I found myself in the grip of creative paralysis, obsessively following the news cycles waiting for the inevitable self-destruction of Donald Trump’s campaign. That moment never arrived. I struggled with this sculpture in the months leading up to the election, trying to find some solace in sublimation. In the week following November 8th I finally finished it.

A divide is growing wider in America. The horizontal split between the to pieces of foam represent this schism. On both sides of the political spectrum uncompromising ideologies are found, inflexible and reinforced by increasingly insular news sources. Bipartisan moderation is becoming an endangered species, as the far right and the far left drift away from any common ground.

This compressive force that is exerted by these polar extremes symbolized by the red and blue diamond shapes exacerbates the chasm. I realize that conservatism itself is not synonymous with hate and intolerance, though this election season certainly cast some doubt on that. The red paint is the vast rural landmass of this country, that voted overwhelmingly Republican. The dormant hostile resentment bubbling up to the surface, always present but never immediately obvious, particularly for myself as a white liberal from the bluest of blue states.

The piece is contained by a bent sheet of aluminum and capped on both ends, alluding to a sense of tunnel vision. The nuts, bolts and washers resemble dials on a television monitor, creating the metaphor of media coverage, the closed sides reflecting how blind and oblivious the “liberal elite” were to this populist uprising.