America Divided
Every painting in Chronicle of an Unquiet Age documents the defining events, people, and issues that shaped its moment in history. Created in real time as events unfolded, each work serves as both an original oil painting and a historical record, reflecting the belief that the news of today is the history of tomorrow.
TRTA-2020-009 | July 2020 | Oil on Canvas | 35" x 26"
The ninth work in the Vision 2020 series confronts the deep political and cultural fractures that shaped the United States during the summer of 2020. As the election approached, disagreements over public health, protests, policing, the economy, and national identity hardened into opposing camps.
A broken map of the United States, headlines, political symbols, and handwritten phrases fill the composition, reflecting a country pulled apart by competing visions of freedom, responsibility, and the future. Everyday life had become inseparable from politics, and compromise seemed increasingly distant.
This painting preserves the emotional climate of the moment—anger, loyalty, fear, exhaustion, and conviction all at once. As a historical time capsule, it records one of the most polarized chapters in modern American public life.
