New road artwork in New York Metropolis celebrates Kamala Harris.
A portrait of the vice chairman and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee — amid lightning bolts and the American flag — seems above the phrase “Forward” in illustrator and road artist Jacob Thomas’ picture that was wheat pasted round Brooklyn and decrease Manhattan on the weekend.
“I was imagining the jolt of energy Harris brought to the Democratic party when she took over,” Thomas instructed HuffPost. “In my mind I was seeing lightning strike the flag and causing the stripes to vibrate with energy.”
Harris’ latest marketing campaign rally cry that “We’re not going back” was an inspiration for the “Forward” caption, he defined.
“This reflects the belief that under (former president and GOP nominee) Donald Trump’s leadership, the country’s progress would regress, while under Harris’s leadership, our nation would continue to advance forward, leveraging the strength of diverse perspectives,” he mentioned.
“We strive to move beyond the leadership of an individual embodying toxic masculinity, xenophobia, racism, sexism, and immorality, towards a new energy and inclusive leadership,” Thomas added.
“I’m driven by simply wanting her to win the election and my effort to contribute to that outcome,” mentioned Thomas, whose crowd-fundraising initiative on GoFundMe to distribute his artwork to activists nationwide has thus far raised greater than $6,000.
Fellow street artist Shepard Fairey’s iconic “Hope” portrait of then-Democratic hopeful Barack Obama in the 2008 election was an influence, Thomas said.
“Amidst the energy surrounding Harris’s transition within the Democratic Party, I wanted to sustain that momentum with my work, much like the ‘Hope’ poster did for Obama’s campaign,” he told HuffPost. “I’m driven by simply wanting her to win the election and my effort to contribute to that outcome.”
David S. Holloway via Getty Images
Thomas final month pasted a collection of anti-Trump prints round Brooklyn that includes Trump as former Chinese language Communist Chair Mao Zedong beneath the phrase “Dictator.”
“The message is simple: we cannot live in a country led by a dictator,” Thomas instructed HuffPost on the time. Final weekend, he added these photos of Trump as Donald Duck to the town’s road scene.
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