LushSux, a Melbourne street artist, is responsible for a controversial mural of a near naked Hillary Clinton with money stuffed in her swimsuit. The Hillary mural offended local residents and angered local government. After being threatened by a fine from the city council, LushSux covered Hillary Clinton’s body in a niqab.
The Maribyrnong council saw this controversial mural as a big issue, considering their stance on gender equity. In this statement, Stephen Wall, the council chief executive, said:
“We believe that this mural is offensive because of the depiction of a near-naked woman, not on the basis of disrespect to Hillary Clinton, and it is not in keeping with our stance on gender equity,” and “We contacted Victoria police to provide their opinion on the matter, and they deemed the mural to be offensive and in contravention of the Graffiti Prevention Act 2007, which council is responsible for enforcing.”
The council also threatened to fine the owner of the local scooter shop the Hillary mural was painted on. In addition to this, the artist responsible, LushSux, had his own Instagram account deleted after posting a picture of the mural.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIj8ByNjZXz/
This caused LushSux to take action, and instead of removing the mural entirely, he decided to censor his own work, rather than having the government censor him. In a statement, he said:
“This is no longer a wall of a supposed ‘offensive and near naked’ Hillary Clinton,” and “It is now a depiction of a beautiful Muslim woman. No reasonable person would consider this offensive. If you do consider it offensive you are a sexist, racist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, uncultured and ignorant bigot.”
LushSux is also responsible for many other controversial murals including ones of Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Donald Trump, and Melania Trump.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIcetoTDsVU/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIiyn43Dgv9/
