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October 21, 2024

With the McDonald's caper, Trump creates another iconic image derived from fine art

By Monica Showalter

President Trump's adventure working in a McDonald's north of Philadelphia on Sunday was a golden opportunity for funny memes, both on the left and right, and meme makers around the web jumped in.

 

 

This thread, too.

But a lot of people stopped to note that the caper created iconic images, an eerie thing given that Trump has a knack for being on the cutting edge of culture. His defiant picture in the wake of the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, was also iconic, as was his mugshot picture -- all of which became part of the lore of the campaign.

This image from the fast food caper stood out:

 

 

... prompting grasping interpretations like these:

 

 

 

 

 

 

They seemed to recognize something artistic, an echo of some artistic school, a very American one, just as the assassination attempt picture evoked a baroque composition.

Was it ... Hopper? Rockwell? Americana?

Not precisely.

The artist whose work they may have recognized is Marc Trujillo, who by the wildest of coincidences was my art professor at Santa Monica College several years ago. Marc could be arguably placed in the same school of art as Hopper, but the actual images captured by his artistry are far closer to what the viewers are taking in with such fascination now.

Marc was there at the McDonald's takeout window creating the iconic images that set the stage for iconic images well before Trump put on the McDonald's apron. I think that for those who don't know his work, his work is wonderful to be aware of.

Trujillo's paintings are simply amazing, exhibited in top museums around the country, always popular and fascinating, the idea being to capture the transient moment we all take for granted to see beauty in the images we would otherwise miss. Here are a few I took from his showing in Torrance, California:

Marc Trujillo painting, fast food worker

Marc Trujillo painting fast food

marc trujillo fast food painting

 

His Instagram account, which is well worth following, has more fast food, Costco, gas stations, the works, here.

Unlike a lot of modern art, these compositions and renderings aren't easy to do, either -- Marc has an extraordinary talent, his hyperrealistic paintings almost photorealistic, but not quite, it's more classical in many ways, which is why his work endures the same way the works of the Old Masters do.

Marc is not political and has never made his politics known, but he does know the political world, having been raised in Washington, D.C. where as I recall, his father was a top congressional aide to a moderate Republican New Mexico Senator in the 1970s or 1980s.

His story of how he became an artist from a Washington, D.C. upbringing is pretty amusing.

As a small child he liked to draw cartoons. He went to elementary school in Washington, D.C. and school ended a few hours before his father's work at the Capitol did. That created a babysitting problem for his parents, because he was too young to be left alone. His parents came up with the idea of parking him at the National Art Gallery which was reasonably safe for him every day after school until they could get off work to go home.

So what does a little kid do in the National Art Gallery day after day with his interest in drawing cartoons? Yep, he starts drawing the masterpieces.

Which is the only way you ever learn how to draw. No surprise, he became a notable artist of iconic classically rendered images such as those that anticipated the Trump imagery.

He also was a great teacher, packing us art students off to the galleries on weekends to do the same thing. Here is my 'before' and 'after' drawing of a hand after Marc's tutelage:

'Before' hand drawingafter hand drawing

Yes, he was a demanding professor -- because he insisted that the result be thrilling. And it was. He taught that to me in one semester. That's another part of the special talent he has.

That aside, the Trump images are iconic and compelling for the same reason the Trujillo images are iconic and compelling. As I watched the Trump images emerge, I knew who the artist was that they were channeling. There is no other.

Images: Monica Showalter

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