# Lushsux Lushsux is a Melbourne street artist who paints huge murals riffing on internet memes and current-events controversies. His work first broke onto meme feeds in late 2015 with a giant Pepe the Frog piece, then went global in 2016 after a stars-and-stripes monokini mural of Hillary Clinton got his Instagram deleted and sparked international press coverage. ## Origin Lushsux had been active on social media for years before the meme murals, with the @Lushsux Twitter account created in June 2011 [4] and an Instagram feed following in July 2014 that initially showed murals painted on the sides of trucks [3]. A Facebook page went up on December 9 and gathered tens of thousands of likes over the following years [2]. The first properly meme-themed mural was posted to his Instagram on October 16, 2015, featuring Pepe the Frog[3]. Less than two weeks later, on October 29, 2015, he posted a Why the Fuck You Lyin' mural[6], setting the template of taking a currently viral image and repainting it at wall scale. - **Platform:** Instagram (mural photos) / news press (viral spread) - **Creator:** Lushsux - **Date:** 2015 ## Overview Lushsux is an anonymous Melbourne-based street artist whose signature move is painting huge, photorealistic walls of internet memes, celebrities and news-cycle characters, then documenting them on Instagram[2]. The murals mix graffiti technique with the fast turnover of meme feeds, so a piece can go up, get photographed, spread across Twitter and Instagram, and be painted over within days[1]. His best-known runs cover Pepe the Frog, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and rapper 50 Cent, usually built around a photoshop or image macro already circulating online rather than an original composition[3]. That approach is what made him a fixture of meme-news coverage: the mural is a physical remix of a joke that already exists on the timeline, which loops the wall back onto the feeds it came from. ## How It Spread Lushsux broke out of the graffiti scene and into mainstream news on July 24, 2016, when he posted a mural of Hillary Clinton in a stars-and-stripes monokini, based on a photoshop that had been circulating online[1]. That week Instagram disabled his account, which at the time had around 107,000 followers, and Lushsux publicly blamed the takedown on the Clinton piece[1]. The Daily Mail interviewed him on July 28, 2016, where he argued Instagram and Facebook applied their rules unevenly and pointed out he had painted Trump murals with no problems[1]. He kept trolling the story forward. On August 1, 2016, he repainted the Clinton mural with the figure fully covered in a burqa, turning the censorship row into its own follow-up post[3]. Fashion and culture site Hypebeast ran an interview on August 10, 2016[1]. Around the same time he traveled to the West Bank and painted a piece on Israel's separation wall in Bethlehem based on an image macro of Donald Trump touching the Western Wall, with the thought bubble I'm going to build you a brother[5]. Later work included a rolling series of 50 Cent murals, built from photoshops by graphic designer Mister Morris and others that crossed the rapper with various memes and celebrities. The rapper's own surprised reactions to each new wall pushed the series across Instagram, with Lushsux eventually declaring a 50 Cent month[5]. ## How to Use Lushsux is a person rather than a template, so there is no format to remix. When people reference him online it is typically by sharing a photo of one of his murals, tagging @lushsux, or citing him as an example when a mural of a viral image shows up in the news. If you want to follow the work, the Instagram feed is the main channel, since the walls themselves often get painted over quickly[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Lushsux? Lushsux is an anonymous street artist from Melbourne, Australia, known for painting large murals based on internet memes and viral news images[1]. ### Where did Lushsux come from? He built an audience on Twitter from June 2011 and Instagram from July 2014, then started posting meme-themed murals in October 2015, beginning with a Pepe the Frog piece[3]. ### What does Lushsux mean? Lushsux is the artist's handle, used across his Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts rather than a phrase with a separate meaning[4]. ### How do you use Lushsux? People usually share photos of his murals and tag @lushsux on Instagram; the walls are frequently painted over, so the online photos are the main record[3]. ### Is Lushsux still popular? He broke into mainstream press in 2016 with the Hillary Clinton monokini mural and Instagram takedown story, and kept posting murals across follow-up projects like the 50 Cent series[1][5]. ## References 1. [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3711930/Melbourne-artist-Lushsux-painted-Hillary-Clinton-accuses-Instagram-censorship.html]() 2. [https://www.facebook.com/lushsux/]() 3. [https://www.instagram.com/lushsux/]() 4. [https://twitter.com/lushsux]() 5. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/people/lushsux]() 6. [https://hypebeast.com/2016/8/lushsux-interview-street-art-is-dead]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/lushsux Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library