When politicians are portrayed they are most often caricatures - cartoons exaggerating their features, impressionists imitating their voices or until 20 years ago as rubber puppets on Spitting Image.

Conrad Atkinson has a different take on US president Donald Trump. He has turned him into wallpaper.

The 77-year-old Cumbrian artist is best known as a painter, but didn't think it was the right medium for the unpredictable leader of the free world. "Painting would seem to elevate him too much," he explains.

"Wallpaper is ubiquitous - and so is Trump right now."

So the pattern on the wallpaper depicts the president's face, topped by yellow hair and open-mouthed as if making a speech.

It is currently on display at the Ronald Feldman Fine Art Gallery in New York and on sale to collectors. It's unlikely to be used to decorate a baby's nursery, but Conrad suggests: "You might use it to decorate the toilet."

Conrad was born in Cleator Moor, studied art in Carlisle, Liverpool and London and has joint British and American citizenship. And he's no fan of the new leader of his adoptive country.

"Western politicians like Trump and Theresa May make Putin look like a statesman," he complains.

"People make excuses for Trump, saying he's a work in progress. You can't call him a fascist, as some people do, because he has no unifying ideology. He just goes from deal to deal to deal.

"America is totally crazy at the moment. There's something happening every day."

Though primarily a painter, Conrad has worked in wallpaper in the past.


Conrad Atkinson One work depicting a Herdwick sheep was donated by the artist to the Calvert Trust, the charity for people with learning and physical disabilities based in Keswick.

Wallpaper at the Grand Opera House in Belfast reproduces the famous image of Northern Irish politicians Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness laughing uproariously together - the image that led to their description as "The Chuckle Brothers".

And he believes politicians and political issues can and should be subjects for art.

He has produced other work on the Northern Ireland troubles, on a strike by women workers at Cumbrian thermometer makers Brannan, and an installation about the victims of mesothelioma, the illness caused by working with asbestos - and the refusal of employers to pay compensation.

Conrad believes another of his political works got him sacked.

He was working at the Slade School of Art in London and artists there had been asked to create works to present to the Queen Mother, the college's chancellor.


Donald Trump The Royal Family had investments with Distillers, the company that sold the drug thalidomide, which had caused deformities in babies. That was the theme for his work.

"Distillers hadn't paid out to 82 young people and I was angry about that.

"My work wasn't presented to the Queen Mother, and my contract wasn't renewed."

Does he think work with a message can ever make much difference?

"In America there's more optimism that people can change things and we can all do a little bit," he responds. "In Britain there's more of a view that the system is rigid and can't be changed.

"This is my tiny cut."