Luke Cornish Trickle down effect

The trickle down effect refers to the idea that tax breaks or other economic benefits provided by government to businesses and the wealthy will benefit poorer members of society by improving the economy as a whole.

The term has been attributed to humorist Will Rogers who said during the Great Depression that ‘money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy.’

My painting is a cynical take on that theory. It depicts a man representative of lower classes (wearing a hood and kept anonymous by a scarf covering his face similar to the Occupy movement or the London riots) being pissed on by a man in a pin-striped suit, the stereotypical one-percenter.

- Luke Cornish