On Saturday, an estimated 200,000 people will gather for the Women'south March in Washington D.C. (and millions of others in more 600 sister marches around the world) to protest the new Groper In Chief. Just the marches—which are also an expression of solidarity and a hope to fight for the rights, wellness and safety of women and all groups—will non be express to bodies in the street.

What women and their allies do with their feet, their voices and their signs on Saturday, artists are besides doing with their work. The prospect of Trump's inauguration and the political and social climate of the 2016 presidential election accept spurred exhibits like "Nasty Women," which ran at the Knockdown Center in Queens from January 12 to 15 and additional "Nasty Women" shows happening now and scheduled in the coming months at "other nasty venues" in the U.S. and abroad. Some other exhibit, "Uprise/Angry Women," opened Tuesday at The Untitled Infinite in Manhattan. These shows are non only an expression of protest and solidarity, but also fundraisers for organizations similar Planned Parenthood and the ERA Coalition.

Related: Women's March on Washington: What yous need to know

Indira Cesarine sits at a table at the back of the bright white gallery the calendar week before the opening of "Uprise/Aroused Women," artwork in boxes up front waiting to be unveiled and hung. The morning after the election, she says she and her staff gathered tearfully around a computer to scout Clinton's concession voice communication. They'd been following the campaigns, and Trump's recurring sexism and assailment toward women, with dismay.

"From his attitude towards women'due south looks and what makes a woman beautiful to his 'nasty woman' comment about Hillary Clinton, to his prerogative of thinking he can grab pussies because he'southward successful or that women should be punished for having abortions. But the collective of everything he's said. And then Mike Pence too," Cesarine says. "All these people that voted him in… clearly retrieve it'due south okay. Isn't it astonishing that that's been accepted in our state?"

When she woke up on Nov 9 to the news that Trump had prevailed over Clinton, "I was just in shock, and I felt like immediately my response was, I desire to create and exhibit and give a platform to female artists around America to respond to this," says Cesarine, a photographer and artist who founded The Untitled Space in 2014 as a platform for women in fine art and to promote feminist art equally a genre. "Art tin can be an act of protest in itself. Information technology tin can exist a goad for change. Information technology can inspire people, empower people."

1-20-17 Indira Cesarine "Uprise:Angry Women"
Indira Cesarine stands amid several works of art, including her own "Fuck Off," included in "Uprise/Angry Women." The Untitled Infinite

Though The Untitled Space has previously hosted exhibits of women's fine art—like "The 'F' Word: Feminism in Art" and "In the Raw: The Female Gaze on the Nude"—this would be the first overtly political ane, organized explicitly in response not only to Trump's impending presidency merely also to the political environs in which his candidacy was rooted. This would also be the gallery's first show curated via an open submissions process. Cesarine put out a call on The Untitled Space's website and on Facebook and quickly received a deluge of submissions. She chose 80 works out of more than ane,800 that poured in from all over the state and even abroad; from teenagers and from established artists; from immigrants from Russian federation, Brazil and elsewhere; from disabled women and cancer survivors.

When putting the testify together, Cesarine started with the championship "Aroused Women," to reverberate her ain emotional state and that of many other women around the land. Beyond that, it's "really virtually challenging the stereotype of a powerful adult female as being nasty or angry or bitchy," she says. "Information technology's okay to be angry about these issues … to encourage artists to encompass their anger and channel that energy to brand keen art and empower others with their art." A couple weeks later, she added the other one-half of the title, "Uprise," because it's "also about how empowering it can be for women to work together with a unified front, confronting and challenging these sort of social political issues that we're all grappling with and emphasizing solidarity." A quarter of the gain from the sale of the art—which ranges in price from $100 to over $ten,000—will go to the ERA Coalition's Fund for Women's Equality.

People overflowed out of the small gallery onto the rainy sidewalk Tuesday evening for Uprise's opening reception. The warmth of the crowd in the gallery cast a fog on the wide windows. A few of the featured paintings, drawings, sculptures and mixed media works draw Trump, while others target broader issues including sexism, sexual assail, rape culture, reproductive rights and diversity. Most were created in the months since Trump became president-elect, just a handful are older. The works are brazen, with a fearlessness that seems to antagonize any notion that progressive values are soft and precludes whatsoever expectation that their holders will exist silenced.

In Focus

Pussy Grabs Back: Women Protest Trump With Art

The showroom "Uprise/Angry Women" opened Tuesday at The Untitled Infinite in Manhattan, alee of Donald Trump's inauguration and the Women'south March on Washington.

Launch Slideshow 12 PHOTOS

Several pieces feature the middle finger, including Rebecca Leveille's "November Fucking 2016" and Lauren Rinaldi'south "Then Many Fucks to Give," a waist-to-upper-lip drawing of a nude woman property her heart fingers over her nipples. There are also plenty of pussies. Daniela Raytchev's "Liberty" depicts the head of the Statue of Liberty rendered in pink with a vagina for a face. Fehren Feingold'southward "My Pussy to Grab" is a striking watercolor of a adult female staring at the viewer while holding her crotch with one hand. Some works deploy caustic sarcasm—similar Shawnette George'due south "Fuck Boy Repellant," a large canvas featuring a spray can with the tagline, "One spray keeps the Fuck Boys away!"—while others are minimal and somber—like Alyson Provax's "Untitled," a tiny, simple work that reads in black print on a white background, "I thought information technology would exist different past at present." Cesarine contributed two works of her own: "Protest," a large oil painting depicting in shades of gray a group of angry women marching, and "Fuck Off," a neon pink light sculpture that spells out those words.

The "Uprise/Angry Women" artist-slash-curator is inappreciably the just one to channel her response, to a sexist keen and his entourage taking over the White Firm, through visual art or to use information technology to raise money for organizations that back up women's rights. Immediately following Trump's victory, independent artists like Leah Goreen, Shawna X and Natalie Somekh announced that proceeds from the sale of sure prints and photographs would benefit Planned Parenthood. The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C. will hold a special "Nasty Women" tour this Sun. And like Cesarine, Jessamyn Fiore, a curator, and her friend Roxanne Jackson, a ceramic artist, decided simply days after the election to put together an exhibit.

It began with a Facebook post that read, "Hello female artists/curators! Lets [sic] organize a NASTY WOMEN group prove!!! Who's interested???" It garnered hundreds of responses. The co-directors of the "Nasty Women" showroom secured the Knockdown Heart in Queens, where Fiore is on the curatorial advisory board, for the weekend before Trump'southward inauguration and decided they would accept submissions from any woman every bit long is the pieces adhered to size guidelines and got to the organizers in time. Every work would price $100 or less and 100 percent of the proceeds would get to Planned Parenthood.

They received submissions from girls and women ages v to eighty from all over the country, including many from red states. They assembled a squad and constructed 10 giant letters twice the peak of an average adult to spell out "NASTY WOMEN." The artwork, including paintings, drawings, sculptures and videos, was displayed on the letters. Over the form of a Thursday-to-Sun run from January 12 to 15—which also included musical performances, sign-making workshops, panels and a resources fair—they sold out all the artwork and raised more than $42,000.

1-20-17 "Nasty Women" exhibit
A view of the final installation of the "Nasty Women," which was on display at the Knockdown Heart in Queens from January 12 to 15. The show raised more than $42,000 for Planned Parenthood. Maris Hutchinson/EPW Studio

"Sometimes when I commencement on a project, I think, 'Well what do I want?'" Fiore says. "Earlier this inauguration and march," she idea, "I would like to go to something where I take this experience of connecting with people, so that I'm fortified to face what's alee." And indeed, she told Newsweek on Monday, sitting down for the first time since finishing the de-install, "I got dose of positivity and connection. I'grand going to hold on to that."

In add-on to submissions for the Queens show, Fiore and her team got a slew of people inquiring well-nigh whether they would tour the exhibit to other locations. So they ready a simple system to allow others to organize their own iterations. They would share their graphics, language and website and promote any self-organized "Nasty Women" exhibit as long as information technology was a fundraiser for an organization that supports women's rights and the organizers made an try to have as diverse a group of artists represented as possible. The long list of shows at "other nasty venues" includes Detroit, San Diego, Charleston, Phoenix, Memphis, Lubbock, Lexington, Portland and San Francisco, as well every bit Melbourne, Lisbon, Cambridge and Amsterdam.

"Doing a project similar this made it very real that we're non alone. In item in that location'southward women all over this state… willing to stand up and fight for their rights," Fiore says. By creating a slice of artwork to contribute to the "Nasty Women" exhibit in Queens or one of the many popping up elsewhere, they are each "calculation a very loud articulate voice to a choir that's maxim, 'Hell no!'"

These are some of the starting time instances since Trump's election of women using visual art to to protest the incoming administration. And with reports on Thursday that the new president could cut funding for initiatives to finish violence against women and eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts—forth with his previous promises to appoint an anti-abortion judges and the fact that he's surrounded himself with people like Mike Pence, whose record on women's rights and LGBT issues is horrendous—such work simply seems more urgent.

The visual art and other protests must continue, Fiore says. "The times are such that this now has to be a part of everyday life."