Nashville's Casey Promise Named Winner in Crooked Media's Trump Portrait Contest

Remember last month when we wrote about two Nashville artists whose renderings of our failed president were finalists in Crooked Media's Portrait Mode contest? A fun update on that: Casey Promise has been named one of the contest's three winners. 

Promise's portrait of President Donald Trump is — if you'll forgive a technical art term — awesome. A realistic sketch that shows the president vomiting up the Twitter logo. 

Pith asked Promise about the thought process behind the portrait.

"I didn’t really want to focus on exaggerating his body type by making him uglier or heavier, which several artists have done (not that I don’t find those amusing)," she says in an email. "I wanted to focus on the literal mess he’s making. I could have painted him fat, balding and layered in a greasy color of orange, but how he physically looks isn’t what mattered to me in that moment of drawing him. That moment of anger and frustration that worked its way from my heart, to my brain and into my right hand. I’ve never been a fan of Twitter. I’ve certainly tried. It feels manic and chaotic. Now that Trump has misused its power and Twitter is letting him, I certainly don’t plan on being an active user.  The expelling of the obvious vomit with Twitter birds mingled in with it, represents the filth and corruption he’s literally spewing all over the internet and into the minds of the people. The lies, the power, the attention-seeking. It’s vile and disgusting. He’s using Twitter as a method to boost his narcissistic needs. I feel that a part of my role as an artist is to use my talents, like a voice, to fight against the misuse of his power." 

For fun, we also asked her what other presidential portrait she'd like to do.

"I never did political or celebrity portraits before this specific image," Promise says. "I’ve never really thought about drawing or painting another president. If I did, I’d probably do Abraham Lincoln for the sheer thrill of drawing such an enigmatic and unique-looking figure." 

You can find Promise and her work at her website or on Instagram. You can also check out a couple more examples of her work below.