AriaWatson

Aria Watson is an American artist, born and raised in Oregon and currently based in Montana, whose photographic series #SignedByTrump emerged directly out of the 2016 US presidential election. Too young to vote by two weeks, Watson channeled her frustration at being unable to make her voice count into a body of work confronting the misogynist and offensive statements made publicly by Donald Trump during his campaign.

In the series, Watson paints these statements directly onto naked female bodies, a device that turns the language of objectification back on itself to create a pointed feminist commentary on the American political climate. The work draws attention not only to the substance of what was said about women during the campaign, but to the paradox of an electorate — women included — that continued to support a candidate despite it.

As Watson has put it, hearing Trump's own words used to justify his conduct toward women left her, in her words, "absolutely sick," prompting a body of work built on the conviction that "women are not objects." #SignedByTrump was exhibited at Galerie Julian Sander in Cologne and at Art Cologne, situating a young, activist American voice within a gallery program otherwise centered on twentieth-century documentary and art photography.