The famed illustrator who captured the peril of Trump’s first term picks up the mantle he thought he’d left behind

Artist Edel Rodriguez, who published more than 125 satirical illustrations and 25 magazine covers depicting Donald Trump during his first term in office, posted an illustration Wednesday morning of Trump as a knife dividing the world.

It’s an unpublished illustration from 2018, Rodriguez tells Fast Company. “I was frustrated this morning and didn’t want to make anything new,” he says. “It gets to the point of what has happened. I think Trump didn’t just divide the nation, I think he’s divided the world.”

The illustration also marks a new chapter for the artist, and an evolution in his art’s motivation, from canary-in-the-coal-mine messenger to a catalog for the history books of what this election will bring.

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Rodriguez’s personal history deeply informs his work. The illustrator, who was also an art director for Time magazine, was born in authoritarian Cuba before moving to the U.S., and compares Trump’s rhetoric to that of Fidel Castro’s. “My background is that of an immigrant, someone who came from a country where we experienced tyranny and a dictatorship—in Cuba,” he told Fast Company in 2018. “I know what I’m talking about.”

No matter the ultimate shape of the Trump character he designs, whether a ballot box, the executioner of Lady Liberty, or in his most recent post, a knife, some elements remain constant. Rodriguez’s works depict Trump as bright orange—like a warning cone—without eyes but always with a gaping, screaming black mouth.

“If he would’ve won [a second term], I would’ve stuck with it,” Rodriguez said of the work following Joe Biden’s presidential election win in 2020. “I do this because it’s a duty.”

Rodriguez continued with the style throughout the 2024 campaign, and says he will continue taking on assignments as they come, though the purpose of his art has changed since Trump’s 2016 run.

“In 2016 I was warning people, ‘Hey, this is what you’re voting for, this is who this guy is,’” Rodriguez says. “That was the purpose of my images then. Right now, to tell people, ‘Hey this guy’s awful’ . . . we all know he is but you still voted for him, so what does that serve?

“I think some of the work going forward would be to not warn, but just to mark it, to say ‘This is who you voted for, this is what you own,’” Rodriguez adds, particularly if Trump delivers on his most extreme campaign promises, like mass deportations or jailing his enemies.

The artist says his work will “keep a record of these years,” as well make people realize “they’re not alone” when they hear Trump gaslight or lie. “I feel like I can connect with people and say, no, actually he is doing this. . . . Here’s a visual image.”