About

Wooden Melania Trump refers to a wooden carved statue of Melania Trump made by amateur chainsaw sculpture artist Ales “Maxi” Zupevc which was erected in her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia and commissioned by conceptual artist Brad Downey. The carving drew much attention on Twitter due to the sculpture only hinting at Melania Trump's likeness.

Origin

On July 5th, 2019, American artist Brad Downey posted photos of the Melania Trump sculpture (shown below). The images garnered over 300 likes in four days. Downey captioned the photo's describing its maker's life and reveals that Downey and his team have made a documentary about the making of the sculpture.

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On July 6th, 2019, Brad Downey^[4] released his documentary titled "Melania" to YouTube (shown below). The documentary mainly follows the artist who prefers Melania Trump over Donald Trump as she is "simple." The video has accumulated over 29,700 views in four days.

On July 6th, Twitter users began share photo's of the statue and criticizing it. Twitter user NicholsUprising^[1] tweeted, "I hope political passions will not inspire mockery of this uncanny likeness" (shown below, left). The tweet garnered over 120 likes in four days. Twitter user mrleft1980^[2] mocked the first lady by claiming the sculpture is "uncanny" and pairing the comment with a photoshopped photo of Donald Trump walking along with the statue (shown below, right). That day in an interview with CNN,^[3] Downey said "he was inspired to create the piece due to what he calls the 'anti-immigration narrative' coming out of the US and from Donald Trump in particular. He noted that it was a "blatant contradiction" to have a president, who has made halting immigration a cornerstone of his presidency, married to an immigrant whose first language is not English."

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