The stark geometry of urban architecture dominates the composition, yet the single word “Resist” interrupts its order. Framed in ornate textures of gold and patterned wallpaper, the work underscores the tension between power’s facade and the cracks where dissent takes hold.

As David Brooks writes in The New York Times (Apr. 17, 2025), America faces the need for “a comprehensive national civic uprising”—a movement capable of countering authoritarianism with rival power. Resist distills that call: the grid of buildings suggests entrenched systems, but the word insists on disruption, on the possibility of redirecting history.

The frame itself performs dual roles—decoration and containment—evoking how institutions cloak authority in legitimacy while limiting dissent. Yet the command “Resist” breaks through, echoing the civil rights movement and other moments when collective action shifted the narrative. The piece becomes both a warning and an invitation, asking viewers to imagine how art, like civic uprisings, can provoke, disrupt, and reframe power.