An LA-based artist, Karen Fiorito, is receiving death threats for a billboard she erected in Phoenix, Arizona of Donald Trump. The billboard is pretty self-explanatory – it’s designed with ominous red and black, and depicts Trump staring furiously ahead surrounded by swastika-like dollar signs and mushroom clouds. The other side of the billboard says “UNITY” in sign language.

Fiorito’s piece was paid for by the Limited Liability Corporation, an organisation that supports the arts in Phoenix. She has predictably received backlash for the billboard, and told Fox 10, “I got the opportunity to have a platform to say something, and I took that opportunity, and I take full responsibility for it,” adding, “I do feel like we are headed down a road of destruction. So, that's my expression and I think I have the right to say that, and they do believe me.”

Fiorito told Dazed that the reception has been mostly positive, describing it as “a lot of love and a lot of hate. Mostly love, but the haters are determined to scare the living daylights out of me. Too bad I don't scare that easy.”

Speaking of the backlash, she said there had been “hundreds and hundreds of emails, phone calls and comments on all of my social media sites.”

“I have had to hire someone to help me mitigate all the hate,” she said. “There are some horrible and terrible things that people are writing.”

Speaking to CBS Los Angeles, she said: “people have defended me online and offered to give me money to keep it up”. But she added that she has also received death threats from detractors who say, "they will come and get me, or that I should be sleeping with a gun underneath my pillow".

Fiorito had anticipated this reaction, and posted on her Facebook page on Friday that she was expecting, “death threats and the like”. She made a statement on Facebook today regarding the backlash, saying, “like much of the media, you have overlooked half of the piece, the back side which calls for UNITY. If you want to debate, fine, but calling me names and threatening my life is just plain mean-spirited and juvenile”. The billboard space is owned by Beatrice Moore, who told 12 News that the work will stay up as long as Trump is in power.