About

Meme Paintings are real-life oil-painted renditions of viral internet phenomena and one of the variations of Bootleg Memes.

Origin

In December 2010, YouTube Artist Dan Lacey^[1] was commission by google to create Meme paintings for the walls of the YouTube office in Tokyo. He ended up making Sneezing Baby Panda, Keyboard Cat, Dramatic Look, Rickroll (shown below) and Maru the Cat.

Spread

On June 5th, 2013, Mashable^[3] reported on artist Lauren Kaelin^[2] who had showcased her paintings of various memes in a series entitled "Benjameme" (shown below). As of April 2019, Etsy^[4] has over 400 items listed for sale under "meme painting."

Bold and Brash

On September 21st, 2001, the Spongebob Squarepants episode 'Artist Unknown'^[5] aired featuring a scene with Squidward showing off his artwork to a critic to be added to a collection. One of the paintings shown is named "Bold and Brash" (shown below).

The painting has been recreated numerous times in real life and then posted to Instagram^[8] and other platforms (shown below).

Alim Smith

In February 2017, Afro Surrealist artist Alim Amith^[6]began posting his paintings of memes to Instagram.^[7] On February 20th, he posted a painting of confused black girl which gained over 3,000 likes in a year (shown below, left). On August 24, he posted a Roll Safe redition (shown below, right).

TikTok

Many TikTok user have created short videos of themselves painting memes. On March 25th, @maya_1715 posted a painting video of "bold and brash" painting (shown below, left). On April 7th @alani_saby, posted a painting of surprised pikachu (shown below, center). On April 14th, @kazuiichii posted a painting of kirby with a knife (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References