Benjamin Wilson

I Will Never Forget This

Oil and Acrylic on Canvas, 68”x60”, 2020

During the last four years, the president, like many before him, has been the subject of countless depictions in visual media. For a long time I had felt a hesitancy in portraying him in my work at all, as there were already so many artists doing so and I wasn’t sure how I could render him in away that felt original. If I was going to paint him, I wanted to see if I could paint a side of him that I didn’t see others painting. It was the news of his COVID-19 diagnosis that really crystalized this impulse as I realized I would attempt to paint him in a moment of weakness. The title, “I will never forget this” appropriates a phrase repeated numerous times by the president during one of his recent video addresses recorded from Walter Reed Hospital. The composition of the piece is also loosely inspired by a number of historical depictions of the death of President Abraham Lincoln.